Nothing was patent to her except that this was the man she loved and he
had returned from the dead.
Presently she became vaguely aware that he was speaking. Though a
little unsteady and subdued, it was the same melody of voice that she
seemed to have known from the cradle.
"Rachel! Rachel!" he was saying, "why didst thou not go to my father
as I bade thee? Nay, I do not chide thee. The joy of finding thee
hath healed me of the wrench when I found thee not, at my father's
house, at dawn to-day. But tell me. Why didst thou not go?"
"I--I feared--" she faltered after a silence.
"My father? Nay, now, dost thou fear me? Not so; and my father is but
myself, grown old. He was only a little less mad with fear than I,
when he discovered that thou shouldst have come to him so long ago, and
camest not. It damped his joy in having me again, and I left him pale
with concern. Did I not tell thee how good he is?"
"Aye, it was not that I feared him, but that I feared that thou--" And
she paused and again he helped her.
"That I was dead? That I had played thee false? Rachel! But how
couldst thou know? Forgive me. Since the tenth night I left thee I
have been in prison."
"In prison!" she exclaimed, lifting her face.
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