And his heart leapt up, and an ember of the old fire warmed his veins. Opening his eyes, which were blinded and dazzled still, he whispered huskily, “Nouna, my little wife!” and groped about with weak, trembling arms until she came to him, and lying down by his side, pressed her lips to his with warm, clinging kisses that carried a world of loyalty and love straight from her soul to his. Then, while he felt her soft mouth strained against his, he knew, all dazed and half benumbed as he still was, that a change had come upon her. It was not the restless butterfly kiss of a passionate caprice that she gave him, as in the old days when she would fly from his knee to the window and back again half a dozen times in five minutes; it was not the embrace of sincere but timid affection she had learnt to give him when they lived their struggling life in Paris; it was the seal of patient and faithful love satisfied at last. From that moment he had no questions to ask, no explanations to hear. What did it matter where he was, how he came there, how she came there? But Nouna, drawing her head back to look at him, saw his lips move, and she watched them and listened, holding her breath, to his weak whisper:
“Cold, darkness, pain, and the long windy nights—all over now!”
And he drew her closer to him, and fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Next morning, when rest had restored him to a wider interest and curiosity, George learnt the missing details of his adventure, and the circumstances which had led to the journey of Rahas.
On finding that the pretext of her mother’s illness, upon which she had been enticed to England, was a false one, Nouna, who now mentioned the once loved name with averted eyes, but without any other token of her suspicions, had felt guilty and uneasy about her husband; and as she did not hear from him she slipped away one night to find the house of Miss Glass, of whose kindness to herself and fondness for George she retained a warm recollection. As she felt ill and had no money, it was easy to guess how strong must have been the feelings which prompted her to leave her mother’s house.
“If I could not be with you, I wanted to be with some one who knew you and was fond of you, and would help me to get back to you, George,” she explained.
She had trusted to luck to find her way from Eaton Square to Kensington, and had been too much frightened to ask for direction. At last however, when she was so tired and despondent that she had sat down on a doorstep and begun to cry, a policeman had spoken to her, and on learning that she had no money, that she wanted to get to Filborough Road, that she was not sure of the number, but that she had friends there, he asked her whether she thought she could find the house if she were in the street, and suggested that she should take a cab, and ask her friends to pay for it. He had then hailed a hansom and put her into it, she had found the house without much difficulty, and Miss Glass had taken her in and nursed her carefully through a long illness which followed her rash adventure.
At this point of her story poor Nouna broke down in tears, reminded of a disappointment which had cut her to the heart. “And—my baby—never came after all,” she whispered in a broken voice, with her head hung down in pathetic shame; “and I thought it was a punishment because I came away without asking you, and I thought you were offended and would never forgive me, because when I wrote to Paris to tell you I was sorry and ill, and begging you to come, I got no answer. For I did not know you were in prison, Miss Glass would not let me know. It was not until weeks later, when—my mother found out where I was, and told me she had seen you, that I knew, and that I said I must come to you. So they let me go, with Sundran, to Paris; and first they said you were at Poissy, and I went there and asked to see you, and there they said perhaps you were at Toulon. So we went to Toulon, and I wrote to the governor, and he said I could see you in two months. I felt I could not live all that time, and I was wondering what I could do to see you, when the great storm came and damaged the harbour, and they said some of the convicts would repair it. And my heart seemed to give a great bound, for I felt that my wish had come true like that. So I crept down to the harbour and slipped quietly along to the place where the stones were washed away, and waited until I saw you. When the second day you spoke to the warder-man and told him to send me away, I did not mind, for I knew by your face you were not angry; so next morning I wrote a message to you on the stone where you were working, and Sundran brought me back to England, for I was getting ill again, and she was afraid I should die there. And Miss Glass said I must go to the south where it was warm, and she sent me to Plymouth to her parents, and they are very kind and good to me.”
“And did you let that wretch Rahas come and visit you?” asked George in a puzzled voice.