“What a pretty and youthful mother I have found,” laughed Reineke.
Miss Winters delayed in Corinth to write a chapter of her book on Greece, and Gustav lounged about with the piratical tendencies of an archæologist. When they reached Athens, borne down by the weight of manuscripts, vases and photographs, Miss Winters found a notification from the Corinth post-office that a letter was waiting for her “au bourreau d’ Athènes.”
“Good heavens, Mr. Reineke, can I in some inexplicable way have brought myself under the penalties of the law? Is it forbidden, under pain of death, to photograph ruins and views of Greece? What connection can I possibly have with the executioner of Athens?”
Gustav laughed and suggested “bureau,” and went off himself to the post-office, where, indeed, he found a letter addressed to Miss Winters in the beautiful calligraphy he so well knew. Then she had written to Inarime, and he held the answer in his hand! He looked at it lovingly, reverentially, and just within the arches of the post-office, glancing hastily around to ascertain that he was not observed, he raised the envelope to his lips. He gave it to Miss Winters without a word, and went away. That evening Miss Winters came to him at his hotel, silently put the letter into his hand, and closed the door of his room as she went out softly, as one closes the door of a sick chamber.
Gustav sat watching the letter timidly, afraid to learn its contents, and the desire of it burned his cheek and quickened his pulse like fever. How would the silence of months be broken? Would her message realise his high expectations? Would the world be less empty for him because of it? Would this fierce ache of the heart drop into a contented memory? He felt her arms about his neck, her lips upon his, her glance pierced his own through to his inmost soul, held her in his clasp, and lived again their short impassioned hour. How bright the rain-drops had looked upon the winter grasses and curled leaves, how clear the song of the birds in the moist air! The moments fled with the hurry of rapture, his beating pulses timed to their measureless speed.
Still Inarime’s letter lay unopened in his hand.
He saw her in the courtyard at Xinara remonstrating with the sobbing woman crouched at her feet; felt his gaze compel hers and drew in his breath with a catch of pain at the memory of the sweet surprised surrender of her eyes,—followed slowly, obediently, her vanishing form with that last long look of hers to feed his hungry soul.
And still the letter was unread.
He sat trifling with his happiness and his misery, scarcely daring to open it, shaken with the apprehensions of yearning, hardly strong enough to lash himself to courage by the past—enervated, sick with expectation, chill with fright. Slowly he took the sheet out of the envelope, and bent his eyes upon it, not noticing that a thinner sheet had fallen to the ground.