Now he caught sight of her and stayed there, staring. She tried to speak, to welcome him, but could not, no words would come. He also seemed to be smitten with dumbness, and thus the two of them remained a while. At last he took off his hat almost mechanically, as though from instinct, and said vaguely,
“You are the Inkosazana-y-Zoola, are you not?”
“I am so called,” she answered softly, and with effort.
The moment that he heard her voice, with a movement so swift that it was almost a spring, he advanced to her, saying,
“Now I am sure; you are Rachel Dove, the little girl who—Oh, Rachel, how lovely you have grown!”
“I am glad you think so, Richard,” she answered again in the same low, deep voice, a voice laden with the love within her, and reddening to her eyes. Then she let fall her wand, and rising, stretched out both her hands to him.
They were face to face, now, but he did not take those hands; he passed his arms about her, drew her to him unresisting, and kissed her on the lips. She slipped from his embrace down on to her stool, white now as she had been red. Then while he stood over her, trembling and confused, Rachel looked up, her beautiful eyes filled with tears, and whispered,
“Why should I be ashamed? It is Fate.”
“Yes,” he answered, “Fate.”
For so both of them knew it to be. Though they had seen each other but once before, their love was so great, the bond between their natures so perfect and complete, that this outward expression of it would not be denied. Here was a mighty truth which burst through all wrappings of convention and proclaimed itself in its pure strength and beauty. That kiss of theirs was the declaration of an existent unity which circumstances did not create, nor their will control, and thus they confessed it to each other.