"All things Of dearest value, hang on slender strings."--WALLER.
"So, my dear, it has come." These were Isabella's words of greeting.
For a moment Philippa hesitated; then she raised her eyes and met the other's look fearlessly.
"Yes," she said simply. "How did you know?"
Isabella took her arm and they walked on together.
"How did I know?" she repeated. "It is written on your face. I was waiting for it, you see."
"You were waiting for it?" repeated the girl wonderingly.
"Yes. I knew it must come. If for no other reason than that pity is akin to love; but more than that, I knew that if there was anything left in the older man of the Francis I used to know--any of his great charm and sweetness of character--you could not, being what you are, fail to love him."
"I did not know--indeed I did not know."
"No, I am certain of that. It is curious, isn't it"--Isabella spoke musingly--"how a little spark of love may fall, all unknown to ourselves, deep down in our heart, and smoulder there without smoke, until some sudden gust of emotion--sorrow--pleasure--anger--God knows what--fans it into a blaze that we cannot extinguish--into flames so high that they reach from earth to heaven and light the whole world for us? Yes, and not only the whole world, but all that unmapped country within us of which we know so little and in which we are so apt to lose ourselves."
"He asked me," said the girl. "I had known in a vague way that the question must come--and I think you knew it too, for that was what you meant the other day, wasn't it? And I was quite prepared. I meant to answer him. I meant to stick at nothing, to satisfy him whatever he asked--and I was going to lie. And as I spoke the words I knew that they were true, I knew that I loved him, Isabella. No, nothing to do with pity, although you may be right when you say that pity had something to do with it in the beginning--but love, such as I did not know was possible to me."
"And now," asked the older woman, gently, "are you glad or sorry?"
"Sorry!" she cried. "Sorry! How could I be sorry? I am glad."
"You welcome love?"
"I welcome it. It is so wonderful--so beautiful----"
"Love brings suffering."
"I am not afraid of suffering--for myself--only for him. If suffering comes, it can never take from me the joy I have known."
"The price of love is heavy."
"No matter the price, I will pay it gladly." There was no mistaking the gladness and the courage which rang in the words.