Nannie stood stock-still on the threshold when she saw him.
“Steve,” she asked at length, “have you come back to live with me?”
“Yes,” he said, and then something impelled him to hold out his arms to her.
She hesitated, wavered for a moment like some beautiful wild bird that had strayed from the forest; then she ran to him in headlong fashion.
“Steve!” she fairly cried, “I can't make the words, but you know! you know!”
Steve folded her in his arms and—the dream came true. In the rapture of that moment he knew indeed—knew that this strange, untutored child was the one woman in all the world to satisfy him.
XVI
Time has run on. It is just three years from the morning Steve came home. He was quite ill for awhile after that, and from his feverish talk Nannie learned several things. In his convalescence they became acquainted, and Steve felt that his wife's handy, pretty nursing was the sweetest experience he had ever known.
Shortly after he was on his feet again Nannie returned from Constance's, whither she had run of an errand one morning, with a great distress working on her face.
She entered the study, where Steve sat at his desk writing, and tried to speak, but words failed her, and she sobbed instead.