She had loved him then! She had called him in to be forgiven. But her forgiveness, divine as it was, white and wide-winged as the flight of a dove—had not been wide enough to cover his guilt.
What a ghastly difference between last night and this! It was right that the face of the moon, so bright then, should be veiled with ragged black clouds. And yet, what if——
The man's eyes strained through the darkness of that dark hour before the dawn.
"If her window is uncurtained, I'll take it as a good omen," he said.
Noiselessly his feet trod the short, wet grass, going nearer to the shadowed loggia to make sure....
The curtains were drawn closely, and the window was shut.
CHAPTER XXII
DESTINY AND THE WALDOS
After the cablegram came, calling them to America, it took the Nelson Smiths an incredibly short time to wind up their affairs and to break the ties—many and intricate as the clinging tendrils of a vine—which attached them to England.