He was awaiting her in the little breakfast room, its glass casements open to the garden with the wall and the round stone seat.  The simmering urn, the white cloth, the shining silver, the big green melons that the hot summer sun had ripened for them alone, and Hugh’s eyes as they rested on her—­such was her illusion.  Nor was it quite dispelled when he lighted a pipe and they started to explore their Eden, wandering through chambers with, low ceilings in the old part of the house, and larger, higher apartments in the portion that was called new.  In the great darkened library, side by side against the Spanish leather on the walls, hung the portraits of his father and mother in heavy frames of gilt.

Her husband was pleased that she should remain so long before them.  And for a while, as she stood lost in contemplation, he did not speak.  Once she glanced at him, and then back at the stern face of the General, —­stern, yet kindly.  The eyes, deep-set under bushy brows, like Hugh’s, were full of fire; and yet the artist had made them human, too.  A dark, reddish brown, close-trimmed mustache and beard hid the mouth and chin.  Hugh had inherited the nose, but the father’s forehead was wider and fuller.  Hugh was at once a newer type, and an older.  The face and figure of the General were characteristic of the mid-century American of the northern states, a mixture of boldness and caution and Puritanism, who had won his battles in war and commerce by a certain native quality of mind.

“I never appreciated him,” said Hugh at length, “until after he died —­long after.  Until now, in fact.  At times we were good friends, and then something he would say or do would infuriate me, and I would purposely make him angry.  He had a time and a rule for everything, and I could not bear rules.  Breakfast was on the minute, an hour in his study to attend to affairs about the place, so many hours in his office at the mills, in the president’s room at the bank, vestry and charity meetings at regular intervals.  No movement in all this country round about was ever set on foot without him.  He was one to be finally reckoned with.  And since his death, many proofs have come to me of the things he did for people of which the world was ignorant.  I have found out at last that his way of life was, in the main, the right way.  But I know now, Honora,” he added soberly, slipping his hand within her arm, “I know now that without you I never could do all I intend to do.”

“Oh, don’t say that!” she cried.  “Don’t say that!”

“Why not?” he asked, smiling at her vehemence.  “It is not a confession of weakness.  I had the determination, it is true.  I could—­I should have done something, but my deeds would have lacked the one thing needful to lift them above the commonplace—­at least for me.  You are the inspiration.  With you here beside me, I feel that I can take up this work with joy.  Do you understand?”

She pressed his hand with her arm.