In
spite of all she could do, trying to hold on hard and fast to her
doubt and gloom, a tide of rich sweetness began to course through
her heart and break in splendid expectation from her eyes, as they
looked through the little unglazed window toward the fort. Nor had
she long to wait. He came up the narrow wet street, striding like
a tall actor in the height of a melodrama, his powerful figure
erect as an Indian's, and his face glowing with the joy of a
genuine, impatient lover, who is proud of himself because of the
image he bears in his heart.
When Alice flung wide the door (which was before Beverley could
cross the veranda), she had quite forgotten how she had gowned and
bedecked herself; and so, without a trace of self-consciousness,
she flashed upon him a full-blown flower--to his eyes the
loveliest that ever opened under heaven.
Gaspard Roussillon, still overflowing with the importance of his
part in the capture of Dejean, came puffing homeward just in time
to see a man at the door holding Alice a-tiptoe in his arms.
"Ziff!" he cried, as he pushed open the little front gate of the
yard, "en voila assez, vogue la galere!"
The two forms disappeared within the house, as if moved by his
roaring voice.
The letter to Beverley from his father was somewhat disturbing. It
bore the tidings of his mother's failing health.
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