To the cedar-room he went, unannounced. She raised her eyes, and a flush crimsoned her face, as she saw who it was.
“Hermione,” he said, simply, “I have received your note, and I am here. One word from you restores me from death to life. I could wait no longer. I have come to you to ask my fate.”
And then—he never knew how it happened—the next moment he had her clasped in his arms, and she was weeping on his shoulder.
“I thought, I fancied, I must sacrifice my life to a phantom of grief,” he said; “but, Hermione, I have suffered enough. I have come to you for life, love, happiness, and, my darling, you must not send me from you.”
“I will not,” she whispered.
But he, in his impetuous hurry, did not hear her.
“If you saw a man drowning and held the rope that was to save him, you could not cut it adrift?”
“No, no!” she cried.
“It is you, Hermione, who holds my life, my soul, my welfare, all in your own hands. Think what my love has cost me, and, darling, do not send me from you again.”
The beautiful face she raised to his had a light in it never yet seen on land or sea, the light of love and heroism.