“I started toward her with hands outstretched. ‘You’ve come—you’ve come!’ I stammered.
“Yes; it was like her to come in that way—without dissimulation or explanation or excuse. It was like her, if she gave at all, to give not furtively or in haste, but openly, deliberately, without stinting the measure or counting the cost. But her quietness and serenity disconcerted me. She did not look like a woman who has yielded impetuously to an uncontrollable impulse. There was something almost solemn in her face.
“The effect of it stole over me as I looked at her, suddenly subduing the huge flush of gratified longing.
“‘You’re here, here, here!’ I kept repeating, like a child singing over a happy word.
“‘You said,’ she continued, in her grave clear voice, ‘that we couldn’t go on as we were—’
“‘Ah, it’s divine of you!’ I held out my arms to her.
“She didn’t draw back from them, but her faint smile said, ‘Wait,’ and lifting her hands she took the pins from her hat, and laid the hat on the table.
“As I saw her dear head bare in the lamp-light, with the thick hair waving away from the parting, I forgot everything but the bliss and wonder of her being here—here, in my house, on my hearth—that fourth rose from the corner of the rug is the exact spot where she was standing....
“I drew her to the fire, and made her sit down in the chair you’re in, and knelt down by her, and hid my face on her knees. She put her hand on my head, and I was happy to the depths of my soul.
“‘Oh, I forgot—’ she exclaimed suddenly. I lifted my head and our eyes met. Hers were smiling.