"To-morrow?"
"If you wanted me then, John."
"I thank God," he breathed in her hair. "And you would come to me without reservation, Joanne, trusting me, believing in me—you would come to me body, and heart, and soul?"
"In all those ways—yes."
"I thank God," he breathed again.
He raised her face. He looked deep into her eyes, and the glory of her love grew in them, and her lips trembled as she lifted them ever so little for him to kiss.
"Oh, I was happy—so happy," she whispered, putting her hands to his face. "John, I knew that you loved me, and oh! I was fighting so hard to keep myself from letting you know how happy it made me. And here, I was afraid you wouldn't tell me—before it happened. And John—John——"
She leaned back from him, and her white hands moved like swift shadows in her hair, and then, suddenly, it billowed about her—her glorious hair—covering her from crown to hip; and with her hands she swept and piled the lustrous masses of it over him until his face, and head, and shoulders were buried in the flaming sheen and sweet perfume of it.
He strained her closer. Through the warm richness of her tresses his lips pressed her lips, and they ceased to breathe. And up to their ears, pounding through that enveloping shroud of her hair came the tick-tick-tick of the watch in his pocket.
"Joanne," he whispered.