Door and window stood open wide, and Philip's impatient feet carried him over the threshold into the dainty atmosphere of Patricia's drawing-room. And what a paradise it was to his hungry eyes! And how redolent of her!
Flowers, birds, books, an open piano, and through the windows such a view of mountain towering above mountain, all transfigured and etherealised by the magic touch of the dying sun-god. Ah, it was good to be here, it was good to breathe this free, keen air; it was good to stand within her home, to think how soon, how very soon, he should look upon her face, and read within her deep blue eyes the secret hidden there for ten long years.
The sunlight blinded him, the birds' song dulled his hearing, the perfume of the flowers steeped his senses; he was lost in a day-dream of ecstatic bliss.
And did he still dream, or was this reality? This graceful, bending figure, whose hands flashed in and out among the piano's ivory keys, awaking the music of a plaintive strain, that, as it grew into melody, became so strangely familiar?
It was no surprise to hear it, and still less was it a surprise to find the melody take shape in words, falling across the refrain, half chanted, half spoken as they were.
"I am a woman,
Therefore I may not
Call to him, cry to him,
Bid him delay not.
Showing no sign to him,
By look of mine to him,
What he has been to me.
Pity me, lean to me,
Philip, my king!"
"Patty, my little Patty! Oh, my darling, I have found you at last, I shall never let you go from me again."
"And have you forgiven me, Philip?" she asked, some long minutes after. "Have you forgiven me my selfishness, and wilfulness, and deception? I sometimes think I can never forgive myself."
He framed the beautiful face in both his hands, and feasted his eyes upon it.
"Forgive you, my darling! Forgiveness is not necessary between us now. We have found our love, Patty, after ten long years of loss; thank God, my darling, we have not found it too late."