Next moment they were round his neck, and she was clinging wildly to him.
"Don't be unhappy! I can't bear it. Don't you see? Ah—don't you see?"
Then he allowed himself to let her know that he did see. When he left her an hour later she stood in the middle of her room and drew a long breath.
"Oh!" she cried. "What have I done? What have I done?"
He walked away with the maiden fire of her kisses thrilling his lips. "I've won—I've won—I've won!" His heart sang within him.
But when he woke in the night—these months had taught him the habit of waking in the night and facing his soul—he said—
"It was very easy, after all—very, very easy. And was it worth while?"
But the next evening, when they met, neither tasted in the other's kisses the bitterness of last night's regrets. And in three days Tom was to come home. He came. All the long way in the rattling, shaking train a song of delight sang itself over and over in his brain. He, too, had his visions: he was not too commonplace for those. He saw her, her bright beauty transfigured by the joy of reunion, rushing to meet him with eager hands and gladly given lips. He thought of all he had to tell her. The fifty pounds saved already. The Editor's probable resignation, his own almost certain promotion, the incredibly dear possibility of their marriage before another year had passed. It seemed a month before he pressed the electric button at her door, and pressed it with a hand that trembled for joy.
The door opened and she met him, but this was not the radiant figure of his vision. It seemed to be not she, but an image of her—an image without life, without colour.