“It is very beautiful indeed,” she said, “but it is very lonely.”
“Your husband?” he inquired.
“He has been dead four years.”
Mr. Sabin felt a ridiculous return of that emotion which had agitated him so much on her first appearance. He only steadied his voice with an effort.
“We are both aliens,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you have heard that all things have gone ill with me. I am an exile and a failure. I have come here to end my days.”
She flashed a sudden brilliant smile upon him. How little she had changed.
“Did you say here?” she murmured softly.
He looked at her incredulously. Her eyes were bent upon the ground. There was something in her face which made Mr. Sabin forget the great failure of his life, his broken dreams, his everlasting exile. He whispered her name, and his voice trembled with a passion which for once was his master.
“Lucile,” he cried. “It is true that you—forgive me?”
And she gave him her hand. “It is true,” she whispered.