THE STEADFAST HEART
tinued to stare at her with a queer, unwelcoming, fixed stare. She drew a quick breath of fright. How he was acting! How cold he was, and unresponsive! Where was his joy at sight of her, his glad welcome? There was no rushing to greet her, no enfolding in his arms, no murmured rapture such as she had pictured…. Angus only sat as one frozen and gave her that strange, level, forbidding stare.
“Angus,” she said a third time, “don’t—don’t you want me?”
He drew his shoulders together, clutched his coat and loosed it again. Then he stood up, took one step toward her, and halted. When he spoke his voice was without life, leaden, dull, barren of all emotion.
“You’re not coming back to me,” he said, “not to Angus Burke…. You’re coming back to the family I’ve found.” It was only by a tremendous effort, visible to Lydia, that he kept control of himself. Presently he commenced to speak again. “If you had come before I would have been glad—glad. I would have known it was to me—because you could forget everything in your love for me…. But you did not come—until I was no longer Angus Burke. You left me because my father found me—you have come back because I have found my grandfather….”
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