He turned the last corner, and the small shape of the colonel’s old house defined itself among the surrounding buildings. In the kindly dark it looked as it used to, and he approached slowly, letting his gaze wander over its façade and dwell on the homely bulge of the bay-window, whence, as of old, light broke in cracks and splinters on the small panes of glass on either side of the front door, on the steps, and the porch that used to sag down to one side, and the gate between its squat brick posts.
There was no one on the street, but a block away he could hear the measured tread of Policeman O’Hara on his customary beat from the saloon at the corner to the saloon in the middle of the block. Beyond this there was nothing but the whispering fall of the rain and its warm breath. Then, as he drew nearer, he passed into an atmosphere of delicate, illusive sweetness that told him the jasmine-tree by the gate was in flower. It recalled vividly other times when he had come—but not to stand outside this way, a stranger in the rain.
He advanced slowly. The street was deserted; no one was there to spy upon him. What would he have felt if to-night he had known she was there, and he was coming to see her—coming like a lover to see her, when the door opened to feel her little hand cold in his, and her lips softly respond to his welcoming kiss—the kiss that had never been given, that was never now to be returned! He would not pass by, but would stop at the gate just for a moment, and dream that she was waiting. He paused, and then started with a suppressed exclamation.
Some one was standing close in front of him in the shadow of the jasmine-tree, and almost concealed by its foliage. He could not see whether the figure was that of a man or woman, could only trace the outline of a form through the darkness and rain. Whoever it was, he had not been heard,—the fall of the rain muffling other sounds,—and he was now close at hand. As he stood, undecided whether to pass on or turn back, the figure made a stealthy movement with its arm—appeared to part the flexible jasmine branches and through the aperture look at the house. The head was thus presented to Gault in partial profile, spotted over with the moving lights that filtered between the leaves. He saw it was a woman’s, crowned with some sort of small, close hat. She seemed to be watching the house. The light caught the curve of her cheek; it was gleaming with moisture.
“She must be soaking,” he thought, “with no umbrella,” and made a step forward.
She heard and started, and, still mechanically holding the branches back, turned and looked at him. For one moment, like a memory from another life, he saw her face in the light.
“Viola!” he cried, as a man might cry to whom the beloved dead stood suddenly revealed.
She gave a gasping ejaculation and let go the branches. In the sudden blotting out of the light he lost her, and, in his terror and superstitious dread, he thought he had seen a vision.
“Viola,” he cried again, “stay with me! love me! forgive me! I’ve prayed for you—I’ve longed for you—I’ve died for you! Don’t leave me now! There is no life for me without you!”