Without breathing it aloud, they longed for some vague denoument to this experience that should take them from Eagle's Court forever.
It was noon the next day when the little household beheld the last shred of their illusion vanish like the melting snow in the strong sunlight of John Hale's return.

He was accompanied by Colonel Clinch and Rawlins, two strangers to the women.

Was it fancy, or the avenging spirit of their absent companions?
but HE too looked a stranger, and as the little cavalcade wound its way up the slope he appeared to sit his horse and wear his hat with a certain slouch and absence of his usual restraint that strangely shocked them.

Even the old half-condescending, half-punctilious gallantry of his greeting of his wife and family was changed, as he introduced his companions with a mingling of familiarity and shyness that was new to him.

Did Mrs.Hale regret it, or feel a sense of relief in the absence of his usual seignorial formality?
She only knew that she was grateful for the presence of the strangers, which for the moment postponed a matrimonial confidence from which she shrank.
"Proud to know you," said Colonel Clinch, with a sudden outbreak of the antique gallantry of some remote Huguenot ancestor.