She was bending over some beautiful japonicas—for, no matter how depressed she might be, she always found solace in flowers—when she heard the sound of a horse's rapid trot.
"Farmer Bowman back again," she said to herself, with a smile; "but I must not give way to him."
She was so certain that it was her tiresome tenant that she did not even turn her head when the door opened and some one entered the room—some one who did not speak, but who went up to her with a beating heart, laid one hand on her bowed head, and said:
"Pauline, my darling, you have no word of welcome for me?"
It was Vane. With a glad cry of welcome—a cry such as a lost child gives when it reaches its mother's arms—the cry of a long-cherished, trusting love—she turned and was clasped in his arms, her haven of rest, her safe refuge, her earthly paradise, attained at last.
"At last!" she murmured.
But he spoke no word to her. His eyes were noting her increased beauty. He kissed the sweet lips, the lovely face.
"My darling," he said, "I left you a beautiful girl, but I find you a woman beautiful beyond all comparison. It has seemed to me an age since I left you, and now I am never to go away again. Pauline, you will be kind to me for the sake of my long, true, deep love? You will be my wife as soon as I can make arrangements—will you not?"
There was no coquetry, no affectation about her; the light deepened on her noble face, her lips quivered, and then she told him:
"Yes, whenever you wish."