But a strange paralysis was on his tongue and will.
She waited until she could achieve the smile she wanted him to see. Then she let her hands fall to her lap. And in the brightness of that smile the tears on her lashes were dewdrops that had caught the morning sunlight.
"Speak up! Now!" It was the imp again.
"Why do you falter?" Now was the time to tell her of that beautiful kingdom and how he proposed to win it for them, to ask her to wait until he could lead her through its gates. And still he could not. . . . And suddenly he knew that he never could. . . .
"There!" The smile was perfect. "That is over. I didn't mean to be so foolish. It's only because I had been thinking it was so much worse. Now I can take time to be glad. About this, I mean."
From the pocket of her jacket she drew forth a folded sheet of paper and held it out to him. It was the letter from St. Mark's.
"It seems almost too good to be true, doesn't it?—though we ought never to say that. I found it on the floor by my desk this morning. I thought it was some of the office correspondence and opened it and—do you mind?—when I saw what it was I read it through. I hardly knew what I was doing. It didn't seem important then. But now— Oh, I am glad—glad!" She nodded brightly. "The finest thing in the world has happened."
He looked dully at the letter which ought to have meant so much to him.
"I had forgotten that."
"It means you can go back to your own profession, doesn't it?"