“I don’t know. All I know is that I live, that I breathe again.”
And radiant, with laughing face and shining eyes, he held out his arms to her, picked her up as if she were a baby and pressed his lips to her forehead. The muscles of his legs swelled until they looked like the muscles of the leg of an antique god, he held his body erect like a young tree and intoxicated with strength and happiness, he carried his beloved burden as far as the footpath where he put her down.
“You will strain yourself, sweetheart,” she said, making a vain attempt to free herself from his encircling arms.
“Never, you darling! I could carry you to the end of the earth, and I shall carry you, all of you, no matter how many you are now, or how many you may yet become.”
And they returned home, arm in arm, their hearts singing with gladness.
“If the worst comes to the worst, sweet love, one must admit that it is very easy to jump that abyss which separates body and soul!”
“What a thing to say!”
“If I had only realised it before, I should have been less unhappy. Oh! those idealists!”
And they entered their cottage.
The good old times had returned and had, apparently, come to stay. The husband went to work to his office as before. They lived again through love’s spring time. No doctor was required and the high spirits never flagged.