"Please, sir, your room is ready," he said, and led the way to a bedroom.
I followed him bewilderedly, wondering what the end was to be. Everything was so strange that I scarcely realised what I was doing.
"Miss Morton told me to tell you that she would be in the library," he said as he showed me into the bedroom, and left me.
It will be remembered that I was more than thirty years of age, and yet no lover of eighteen could have felt more nervous than I. For the first time during eleven long years I dared to hope that I might be happy, and yet as I stood outside the door, longing yet not daring to enter, my limbs trembled like those of a woman in great fear.
At length I knocked timidly, and heard Ruth's voice telling me to enter, and in a second more we stood face to face.
She stood by the library table with an eager look upon her face. For a minute we did not speak, but looked steadily at each other.
How beautiful she was in spite of the long years of trouble and disappointment! True, the first blush of maidenhood was gone, for she was only four years younger than I, but she was beautiful beyond description. Little of stature, yet perfectly moulded, her great, grey eyes still possessed their old charm, while her brown hair made a fitting crown for so beauteous a face. To me, the rough sailor, who for more than eleven years had scarcely spoken to another woman, save Salambo's wife and my mother, she seemed like an angel.
All this flashed through my mind as her great eyes met mine.
"Ruth," I said.
"Roger," she sobbed, "thank God you've come."