She went out, but shrank from returning immediately to her child. Those
agitating thoughts had affected her too deeply. She walked away from the
church up towards the park, hoping to find some quiet place where she might
walk down the disturbance in her mind, so as to return with a calm smiling
face to her darling. It was not a tempting day for any purposeless
pedestrian. The sky had darkened at noon, and there was a drizzling rain
coming down from the dull gray heavens. The streets cleared quickly now the
services were over; but Clarissa went on, scarcely conscious of the rain,
and utterly indifferent to any inconvenience it might cause her.
She was in the wide open place near the park, when she heard footsteps
following her, rapidly, and with a purpose, as it seemed. Some women have
a kind of instinct about these things. She knew in a moment, as if by some
subtle magnetism, that the man following her was George Fairfax.
"Clarissa," said a voice close in her ear; and turning quickly, she found
herself face to face with him.
"I was in the church," he said, "and have followed you all the way here.
I waited till we were clear of the narrow streets and the crowd. O, my
darling, thank God I have found you! I only knew yesterday that you had
left Paris; and some happy instinct brought me here. I felt sure you would
come to Austin. I arrived late last night, and was loafing about the
streets this morning, wondering how I should discover your whereabouts,
when I turned a corner and saw you going into St.
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