“Holmby is not my house,” said Mr. Meredith as they drove up the avenue; “I took it to please Alice. She has a fancy for the north now, as she used to have for the south.” As he said this he gave a wistful side-glance at Colin, who had scarcely spoken during all the drive; and even to this speech the young man made little response. The house was a pale grey house, of rough limestone, like the humbler houses, surrounded by woods, and bearing anything but a cheerful aspect. The avenue was long and straight, and the cold commonplace outline of this secluded dwelling-place filled up the vista between the two dark lines of trees, growing gradually more distinct as they approached. Everything had a certain visionary aspect to Colin at the moment, and the look of the house irritated him, as if it had been a type of the commonplace existence which he was henceforward to lead. He could not keep the cloud that was on his mind from appearing also on his countenance, though, at the same time, he could not help observing that Mr. Meredith looked at him often with a regard that was almost pathetic. To be sure, there was nothing very elevated in the aspect of this man, whose history was not one which Colin liked to think of; but still it was evident that his heart was trembling for his child, and that he was conveying to her the lover whom he had once rejected and insulted, as he might have carried a costly medicine, hard to procure and of doubtful efficacy, but still the only thing that there was any hope in. Colin recognised this wistful look by the freemasonry of a mind equally excited, though in a different way; and, as for Lauderdale, he looked on at both with a painful doubt and uncertainty which had never before entered into his thoughts. For all this time he had been trying to think it was Alice’s father, or even Alice herself, who was to blame; and now only he began to see clearly the reluctance of his friend to its fullest extent—his reluctance and, at the same time, that almost fantastic honour and delicacy which kept the young man from avowing even to his closest companion the real state of his feelings. So that now, at the first moment for years in which the fulfilment of Colin’s engagement began to appear possible, Lauderdale, who had preached to him of constancy, who had longed after Alice, who had taken every opportunity of directing to her the truant thoughts of his friend, for the first time faltered. He began to see the other side of the question just at the time when it would have been agreeable to ignore it. He saw not only that Colin’s happiness was at stake, but that it would be better for Alice even to break her heart if that was inevitable, than to be married, not for love, but for honour; and unhappily he recognised this just at the moment when Sir Bayard, Sir Quixote, whatever absurd title you may please to give him—the Mistress’s son, who was incapable of leaving a woman in the lurch, or casting upon her the shame of rejection—was going on to meet his fate.

From this it will be seen that it was a very subdued and silent party which was at this moment driving along the long avenue under the trees, and making Alice’s heart beat, indoors on her sofa, with every turn of those wheels on the gravel. “Is papa alone?” she asked of her little sister, who was at the window; and her heart was jumping up into her throat when she uttered that simple question, as if it would take away her breath. When she received for answer a lengthened and interrupted description of the two gentlemen who accompanied Mr. Meredith, Alice put her head back on her pillows and closed her eyes in the sudden faintness of her great joy. For she in her simplicity had no doubt about Colin. If he had not loved her he would not have turned back; he would never have come to her. It was the tender guardian of her loneliness, the betrothed in whom she had reposed the entire faith of her nature, whom her father was bringing back to her; and, so far as Alice was concerned, the four intervening years might have had no existence. She had seen nobody and done nothing during that dreary interval. Ill-health, and seclusion, and mourning had made it appear to her that her life had temporarily stopped at the time when Mr. Meredith carried her off from Frascati. And now, with Colin, life and strength and individuality were coming back. This was how the matter appeared on her side of affairs, and it seemed to Alice the natural solution of the difficulty; for, after all, but for her father’s cruel persistence against her, which Providence by many blows had broken and made to yield, she would have been Colin’s wife for all those years. And now, the one obstacle being removed, it seemed only natural to her straightforward and simple intelligence that the long-deferred conclusion should arrive at last.

Both she and the little sister at the window were in mourning. Mrs. Meredith was dead—the stepmother, who had been Alice’s greatest enemy; and, of all the children who had once made their father indifferent to his elder son and daughter, the only one left was the little girl, who was giving her sister an elaborate description of the gentlemen who were with papa. This was why Mr. Meredith had yielded. Alice judged, according to her simple reckonings, with a little awe of the terrible means employed, that it was Providence who had thus over-turned her father’s resolution, and made him yielding and tender. It did not occur to her to ask whether for her happiness it was just or reasonable that so many should suffer; she only accepted it as providential, just as Colin four years before had persuaded himself that all the circumstances which had thrown them together were providential. And now the climax, which the poor girl permitted herself to think God had been bringing about by all the family convulsions of these four years, came close, and the heart of Alice grew faint with thankfulness and joy. When she heard them coming upstairs she sat upright, recovering with her old force of self-restraint her composure and calmness. Mr. Meredith came in with a little bustle to spare his daughter the agitation of the meeting. “You were quite right, Alice, my love,” he said, bringing them hurriedly up to her. “Here is Mr. Campbell and your friend, Mr. Lauderdale. They recognised you at the same minute as you recognised them; and, if I had not been so foolish as to tell John to drive on, we might have picked them up and saved them their walk. I thought she was ill,” the anxious father continued, turning his back upon Alice and occupying himself with Lauderdale. “She had a fainting fit yesterday, and I was frightened it was coming on again, or I should have stopped and picked you up. We are a little dark here with all these trees. I would have them cut down if Holmby were mine; but at this window, if you are fond of scenery, I can show you a beautiful view.”

And it was thus that the two, who parted at Frascati as lovers within a few weeks of their marriage, met in the shaded drawing-room at Holmby. The most exciting events of Colin’s life were framed within the interval; but nothing had happened individually to Alice. He seemed to find her exactly where he had left her, though with the sense of having himself travelled to an unutterable distance in the meantime. She did not say much in the tumult and confusion of her joy; she only held out her hand to him, and lifted her soft eyes to his face with a look of supreme content and satisfaction, whim had the strangest effect upon Colin. He felt his doom fixed for ever and ever as he looked into the gentle blue eyes which conveyed to him all that was in Alice’s heart. And she had not the slightest suspicion of the heaviness that was in his as he drew a chair near her sofa. “At last!” she said softly, under her breath. The little sister stood by, looking on with round eyes opened to their widest; but, as for Alice, she had no consciousness of any presence but one. And Colin sat down by her without any answer, in his heart not knowing what to say. Her black dress, her languid air, the paleness one moment, and the flush of delicate colour the next, all moved him strangely. Even had he not been Bayard he could not have done anything to wound the fair, feeble creature who looked at him with her heart in her eyes. And naturally the consequence was, that Colin answered in a way far more decisive than any words—by clasping the soft clinging hand, and bending down to kiss it as in the old Italian days. Alice had never had any doubt of her betrothed, but at that moment she felt herself receiving the pledge of a new and more certain troth—and in the revulsion from despondency and weakness her mouth was opened for the first time in her life—opened with a fulness, the thought of which would have covered poor Alice with misery and confusion if she could but have known what was passing in her companion’s heart.

“I had grown so tired of waiting,” she said, scarcely aware of what she said, “I was wearying, wearying, as Mr. Lauderdale used to say; and to think you should be passing so near, and perhaps might have passed altogether, and never have known I was here; Oh, Colin, it was Providence!” said Alice, with the tears in her eyes.

And poor Colin, who did not know what to say, whose heart was bursting with the profound pity and instinctive tenderness of old, and with that sense that all his own imaginations were ended for ever, and his future decided for him without any action of his own—Colin could find no answer to make. He bent down again on the pale, soft hand which he held in his own, and kissed it once more with that tender affection which was everything in the world but love. “Yes,” he said, but it was more to himself than to her, “I think it was Providence.” Alice had not an ear that could hear the despair that was in the words—for indeed it was a despair so mingled with softer emotions, with sympathy and anxiety, and a kind of fondness that nobody could have found it out who did not know Colin to the bottom of his heart. This was how the meeting was accomplished after all those years; for by this time Lauderdale had looked at the view without seeing it, and was returning to see how his friend had gone through the encounter, and to claim Alice’s recognition for himself. The two spectators who approached from the window, where they had been pretending to look at the view, were, to tell the truth, as much agitated as the young people themselves. Perhaps even, on the whole, a stranger, not knowing anything about the matter, would have concluded that it was Lauderdale and Mr. Meredith who were moved the most; for perhaps there is nothing which can happen to one’s self which moves one so profoundly as to watch a crisis of fate passing over another human creature whom one loves, yet whom one cannot die for or suffer for, and whose burden has to be borne, not by us, but by himself. Alice’s father, for his part, looked upon this meeting somehow as his child’s last chance for life—or rather, it would be better to say, as his own last chance to save her life and preserve her to himself; and Lauderdale saw Colin’s happiness, which was almost of more importance than his life, hanging upon the doubtful expression in the sick girl’s eyes. When the two turned back, it was impossible to mistake the sweet joy and serenity of Alice’s looks. Excitement was unnatural to her in all circumstances. She had been agitated profoundly for a moment; but now all that was over, and the content of old had returned to her face. The same look that Lauderdale remembered at Frascati—the look which always greeted Colin’s arrival—not any tumult of delight, but a supreme satisfaction and completeness, as if there remained nothing more in the world to be looked for or desired! She half rose up to meet her old friend as he came back to her, himself greatly moved, and not venturing to look at Colin—and held out both her hands to him. “Oh Mr. Lauderdale, I have not told you how glad I am, nor how I have been wearying”—said Alice. She repeated that word—a word she had once laughed at—as if with a soft appeal to his recollection. She had said it so often to herself in those long years—half because it was Scotch, and pleased her yearning fancy; and half because there was a lingering depth of expression in it, like her long watch and vigil. And then she smiled in his face, and then cried a little. For, notwithstanding her tranquillity, all this had tried her weakness, and proved a little more than she could bear.

“You must not agitate yourself, Alice,” said Mr. Meredith, taking, as most men do, the result of her past agitation for the thing itself. “She is still a little weakly, but I hope now we shall soon see her strong again.” This he said again with a covert glance at Colin, who was still sitting close to the sofa with his face shaded by his hand. Notwithstanding that shade the young man knew by instinct the look that was being directed upon him, and turned to meet it; and on his face there were greater marks of agitation than on that of Alice, which had been relieved by her tears. He was pale, and to Lauderdale’s anxious eyes seemed to have fallen back from his vigour of manhood for the moment into that unassured youth which he had left behind him for years. And then the voice of Mr. Meredith had an effect upon Colin’s mind altogether different from that produced by the soft familiar tones of Alice. When the father spoke, Colin’s heart shut fast its doors, and rose up against the impending fate.

“If Miss Meredith was ill,” he said, with a little bitterness, taking at least advantage of the rights thus pressed back upon him to repulse this man, whom he could not help disliking in his heart, “I am surprised that you did not let me know.”

This speech was so unexpected and sudden, and there was in it such an amount of suppressed exasperation, that Lauderdale made a step forward without knowing it, and Alice put out her hand vaguely to arrest the vehemence of her betrothed. As for Mr. Meredith, he was as much relieved by the assumption of right in Colin’s words, as he was disturbed by his unfriendly tone.

“My dear sir,” said the father, “I hope you will let bygones be bygones. I have learned many severe lessons, and Providence has dealt with me in a way to make me see my errors; but I can safely say that, since I understood the true state of the case, I have always reproached myself for not having shown the gratitude I felt to you.”

Colin, for his part, did not make any answer. His temper was disturbed by the struggle he had been going through. He could not cry and get over it, like Alice; being a man it was only in this way that he could give a little vent to his feelings. And then he could relieve himself by putting out some of his pain upon Mr. Meredith, without injury to her who had thus thrown herself undoubtingly upon his love, as she supposed. Perhaps Bayard himself, under the same circumstances, would have done as much.

“I may say, my gratitude to both,” said Mr. Meredith, whose anxiety that he might not lose this chance for Alice was so great that it made him almost servile, and who could not help recollecting at that inopportune moment the letter he had written to Lauderdale; “I know that Mr. Lauderdale also was very kind to my poor boy. I hope you will both excuse the error of the moment,” he said, faltering a little. It was hard to own himself altogether in the wrong, and yet in his anxiety he would have done even that for Alice’s sake.

“Speak no more of it,” said Lauderdale. “Our friend Arthur spoke of his father with his last breath, and we’re no like to forget any of his words. It’s an awfu’ consolation to my mind to see her again, and to feel that we’re a’ friends. As for Colin, he’s a wee out of himself, as is natural. I would have been real vexed,” said the philosopher, with the smile that was half tears, and that Alice remembered so well—“being sure of Arthur for a fast friend whenever we may meet again—to have lost all sight and knowledge of you.”

He looked at Alice, but it was to Arthur’s father that he held out his hand; and, as for Colin, it was impossible for him not to follow the example, though he did it with a certain reluctance which did not escape any of the spectators. And then they all made believe to be composed, and at their ease, and began to talk, forming a little circle round Alice’s sofa, outside of which the little sister, with her eyes open to the widest extent, still stood, drinking in everything, and wondering much what it could mean.

“And, now that we have you,” said Mr. Meredith, “we cannot let you go again. You can go to Windermere, and any other place worth seeing, from Holmby. You must tell me where to send for your things, and we will try to make you comfortable here.”

“We have no things but those we carry with us,” said Colin. “We are pedestrians, and not fit for ladies’ society. I am afraid we must go upon our dusty way—and return again,” he added with an involuntary glance at Alice. It was because he thought he was failing of his duty that he said these last words; but they were unnecessary so far as Alice was concerned, who had no suspicion, and, most likely, if she had known his secret, would not have understood it. It never could have entered her head as a possible idea that he would thus have come to her again and accepted his old position had he not loved her; and in her truthfulness she had the superiority over Colin—notwithstanding, perhaps, that his motives were of a higher order, and his mode of thinking more exalted than anything that could ever have come into her honest and simple mind.

“Oh, we can put up with your dress,” said Mr. Meredith, putting on a heartiness that was scarcely natural to him. “We can be tolerant on that point. I will give orders directly about your rooms. Alice is not well enough to see visitors, and your coats do not matter to her,” he went on with a little laugh; not that he was merry, poor man, but that, like all the rest, he was agitated, and did not know how to give it vent. As for Alice, she did not say anything, but she turned her soft eyes upon Colin with a look that seemed to caress him and his dusty vestments. If he had been in the roughest peasant’s dress, it would not have made any difference to Alice. Her soft, tranquil eyes rested upon him with that content and satisfaction which convey the highest compliment that eyes of woman can make to man. When he was there she had no longer any occasion to look into the world, or seek further, and she could not but smile at the idea that his dusty coat mattered anything. Thus it was that everything was settled before Colin knew what was being done. The sun was still high in the heavens when he found himself established at Holmby, by Alice’s side, an inmate of her father’s house; he who had got up that morning with the idea that he was entirely sundered from his old ties, and that nothing in the world was so impossible as such a return upon the past. Even now, when it had taken place, he could not believe it was true, but sat as in a dream, and saw the fair shadow of the Alice of Frascati moving and speaking like a phantom. Would it remain for ever, looking at him with the soft eyes which he felt ashamed to meet, and to which he could make so little response? A kind of despair came over Colin as the slow afternoon waned, and the reality of the vision began more and more to force itself upon him. Everything was so frightfully true and natural, and in reason. He had to baffle not only the eyes of Alice, but those of Lauderdale, who, he felt sure by instinct, was watching him, though he never could catch him in the act, and put him down as of old by the broad, full, half-defiant look which he had learned was his best shield against all question. Lauderdale had grown too skilful to subject himself to that repulse; and yet Colin knew that his friend observed his smallest action, and heard every word he was saying, however distant he might be. And thus the day passed on in a kind of distracting vision; and they all dined and talked, and looked, as it is the duty of any party of people in England to look, exactly as if they had been all their lives together, and it was the most natural thing in the world.