The rustling sound stopped
for a moment. The door was softly pushed open. The false Grace
Roseberry entered the room.
Horace advanced to meet her, opened his lips to speak, and
stopped--struck dumb by the change in his affianced wife since he
had seen her last. Some terrible oppression seemed to have
crushed her. It was as if she had actually shrunk in height as
well as in substance. She walked more slowly than usual; she
spoke more rarely than usual, and in a lower tone. To those who
had seen her before the fatal visit of the stranger from
Mannheim, it was the wreck of the woman that now appeared instead
of the woman herself. And yet there was the old charm still
surviving through it all; the grandeur of the head and eyes, the
delicate symmetry of the features, the unsought grace of every
movement--in a word, the unconquerable beauty which suffering
cannot destroy, and which time itself is powerless to wear out.
Lady Janet advanced, and took her with hearty kindness by both
hands.
"My dear child, welcome among us again! You have come down stairs
to please me?"
She bent her head in silent acknowledgment that it was so. Lady
Janet pointed to Horace: "Here is somebody who has been longing
to see you, Grace.
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