"Has it amused you to frighten me?" she demanded.
He took off his cap, and ran his fingers through his hair in the old perturbed gesture. There was a pale intensity of yearning on his face, a dark gleam of hungering pain, something of the bewildered misery of the lost child, an agony of renunciation with none of that exaltation which makes renunciation beautiful. Despite the sharp cold of the closing day he looked hot, disheveled, as one hard pressed. His breath came quickly and painfully, as if he had been running a race. Every vestige of color left his face as he stood there, his look not faltering from hers.
"Oh, how could you do it?" she cried, tears starting to her eyes.
"I didn't think you knew," he said, hoarsely.
"Not know? Not know!" she gave a little laugh that was half a sob. "I have gone in terror—for weeks!"
"I am sorry," was all he found strength to say; and it seemed as if the words could scarcely pass his lips.
In the sudden revulsion of feeling she was becoming shaken with anger. He saw that she misjudged him; but she had never seemed to him so beautiful as in her scorn and anger and resentment. The appeal of her beauty only added to his distress. The moment was as tense as that earlier one when their hearts had been disclosed; but now no one came to break the spell. Instead, Rosamund turned, and walked away from him.
He had believed, during these weeks, that he had schooled himself to silence and restraint; but she heard him call, hoarsely, chokingly,
"Rosamund! I had to—know you were safe! I had to—see you!"
Then, for her, the world threw off the horror that had befogged it for weeks, and once more opened to light and life. Anger, resentment, doubt, all—all were swept away at his cry, were as if they had never existed. She heard the love in his voice, and with a little answering cry of her own she turned and ran toward him. Shyness and restraint had no place in this new happiness.