She did not answer.
"But now I know that that was untrue; you did not know that I was coming——"
"I did not know," she said. "No, I did not know."
"Kathleen, Kathleen, you waited so long, all—all those years and yet not quite long enough; another few months, if only you had waited another few months, Kathleen."
She turned to him suddenly, her face bright, her cheeks flushed.
"You—you have seen him, my husband, you have taken his hand, you—you are here, his guest—our honoured guest—the past is dead and gone; I waited—ten years—" her voice broke for a moment, "then I looked at your letters for the last time and—and burned them all, and when I saw their black ashes in the grate, I knew that from that moment my new life began, a life that could not, must not, hold memories of a past. It was Fate and we—we must accept it; I have accepted it—so we—you and I—we meet again—as friends—" She held out her hand to him, she smiled at him.
He took her hand and held it tightly, he looked into her eyes, then he groaned, he bent his head and kissed the hand before he let it go, and then from beyond the door there came the sound of voices, Coombe's loud and dominant, argumentative.
"Not wear a white tie with a dinner jacket, Jobson? I tell you I'll wear any tie I like—and if people don't like it, they can do the other thing. A black tie makes me look like a waiter, by George, and I won't wear 'em. And if I want to wear a pink or a sky blue tie, why hang it, I'll wear it. And if it isn't the fashion, well I'll make the fashion like that fellow Beau—Beau Brummagem, or whatever his confounded name was."
All unknowingly Coombe had struck the right note, he had done Kathleen a service. A dead and gone love, burned love-letters, ten long years of waiting, of hoping and praying and nothing to reward the faithfulness and the loyalty—what mattered all that? Away with melancholy thoughts, away with sadness and regrets—poor Romance must fly for the moment and hide her diminished head before the advance of a stout gentleman in evening dress, wearing a white tie. Kathleen smiled. Honest Mr. Coombe little knew how grateful his hostess felt to him at that moment.
CHAPTER XXIII