p to be ready, so that I might drive over as soon as
she summoned me; but the hours dragged on, the early twilight came, and
I sat here in this very chair, or measured up and down, up and down, the
length of this very rug--and still there was no message and no letter.

"It had grown quite dark, and I had ordered away, impatiently, the
servant who came in with the lamps: I couldn't _bear_ any definite sign
that the day was over! And I was standing there on the rug, staring at
the door, and noticing a bad crack in its panel, when I heard the
sound of wheels on the gravel. A word at last, no doubt--a line to
explain.... I didn't seem to care much for her reasons, and I stood
where I was and continued to stare at the door. And suddenly it opened
and she came in.

"The servant followed her with a light, and then went out and closed the
door. Her face looked pale in the lamplight, but her voice was as clear
as a bell.

"'Well,' she said, 'you see I've come.'

"I started toward her with hands outstretched. 'You've come--you've
come!' I stammered.

"Yes; it was like her to come in that way--without dissimulation or
explanation or excuse. It was like her, if she gave at all, to give not
furtively or in haste, but openly, deliberately, without stinting
the measure or counting the cost. But her quietness and serenity
disconcerted me. She did not look like a woman who has yielded
impetuously to an uncontrollable impulse. There was something almost
solemn in her face.

"The effect of it stole over me as I looked at her, suddenly subduing
the huge flush of gratified longing.

"'You're here, here, here!' I kept repeating, like a child singing over
a happy word.

"'You said,' she continued, in her grave clear voice, 'that we couldn't
go on as we were--'

"'Ah, it's divine of you!' I held out my arms to her.

"She didn't draw back from them, but her faint smile said, 'Wait,' and
lifting her hands she took the pins from her hat, and laid the hat on
the table.

"As I saw her dear head bare in the lamp-light, with the thick hair
waving away from the parting, I forgot everything but the bliss and
wonder of her being here--here, in my house, on my hearth--that
fourth rose from the corner of the rug is the exact spot where she was
standing....

"I drew her to the fire, and made her sit down in the chair you're in,
and knelt down by her, and hid my face on her knees. She put her hand on
my head, and I was happy to the depths o