Her head fell on my shoulder. For the moment at any rate the victory was mine, and I felt with a rare sense of delight that she was glad I had come to her, and that I was giving her strength in her weakness.
I did not attempt to speak. It was enough to have her once more in my arms, to feel that I was a comfort to her, that her love had triumphed overall else in that dread dreary time; and I waited while by slow degrees she battled with her emotion and fought her way back to self-strength.
Once in the long, sweet suspense of that battle she raised her head, looked at me and smiled—a sorrow-laden, anxious, wan smile—as if in deprecation of her own weakness and of her woman's need for aid and sympathy. Then her head sank again on my breast with a sigh of infinite content, such as might have slipped from the lips of a tired and overwrought child.
The sound was music in my ears, for it told me how for the moment at least my coming had eased her misery.
At length she began to stir again in my arms; not away from them, I thanked Heaven, but as though the sense of relieved happiness was passing, and the thoughts of trouble were gathering force again.
"I am shamed, Ferdinand," she murmured.
"I love you, sweetheart," was my whispered reply.
"How did you come here, and alone?" she asked next, after a pause, "You have caught me in my moment of weakness."
"I will tell you all presently," I said. "I have come to help you. Wait."
But her curiosity was rising as her composure returned.