Two young clergymen were bending devotedly one on each side of her; it
was to them she was singing the hymn of constancy.
Alfred started back as if he had been stung; and the music stopped dead
short.
For she had heard his step, and, womanlike, was looking into her
companions' eyes first, to see if her ear had deceived her. What she saw
there brought her slowly round with a wild look. Her hands rose toward
her face, and she shrank away sideways from him as if he was a serpent,
and her dilated eyes looked over her cringing shoulder at him, and she
was pale and red and pale and red a dozen times in as many seconds.
He eyed her sorrowfully and sternly, taking for shame that strange
mixture of emotions which possessed her. And so they met. Strange meeting
for two true lovers, who had parted last upon their wedding eve.
No doubt, if they had been alone, one or other would have spoken
directly; but the situation was complicated by the presence of two
rivals, and this tied their tongues. They devoured one another with their
eyes in silence; and then Julia rose slowly to her feet, and began to
tremble from head to foot, as she looked at him.
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