time I was roused up to a pitch of excitement
such as I had never before experienced. For two days and two nights I
had been brooding and dreaming over this one subject, imagining all
sorts of things, making all sorts of conjectures about Jack's letter
and Miss O'Halloran's reception of it. Was it possible that she could
share his madness and his desperation? That I could not tell. Women in
love, and men in love also, will always act madly and desperately. But
was she in love? Could that serene, laughing, merry, happy face belong
to one who was capable of a sudden act of desperation--of one who would
flit with Jack, and fling her father into Borrow at a moment's warning?
How could that be? So by turns my hopes and my fears rose in the
ascendant, and the end of it all was that, by the time I reached
O'Halloran's door, Jack himself, in his most frantic mood, could not
have been more perfectly given up to any headlong piece of rashness,
folly, and desperation, than I was.

I knocked at the door.

I was admitted, and shown into the room. O'Halloran, I was told, had just
arrived, and was dressing. Would I be kind enough to wait?

I sat down.

In about two minutes I heard a light footstep.

My heart beat fast.

Some one was coming.

Who?

The light footstep and the rustling dress showed that it was a lady.

But who?

Was it the servant?

Or Marion?

Was it Nora?

My heart actually stood still as these possibilities suggested
themselves, and I sat glaring at the door.

The figure entered.

My heart gave a wild bound; the blood surged to my face, and boiled in
my veins. It was Nora's self! It was--it was--my Nora!

I rose as she entered. She greeted me with her usual beaming and
fascinating smile. I took her hand, and did not say a word for a few
moments. The hour had come. I was struggling to speak. Here she was.
This was the opportunity for which I had longed. But what should I say?

"I've been longing to see you alone," I cried, at last. "Have you
forgotten that day on the ice? Have you forgotten the eternal hours of
that day? Do you remember how you clung to me as we crossed the
ice-ridge, while the waves were surging behind us, and the great
ice-heaps came crashing down? Do you remember how I raised you up as
you fell lifeless, and carried your senseless form, springing over the
open channel, and dashing up the cliff? And I lost you, and now I've
found you again!"

I stopped, and looked at her ear