At daybreak she leaped to her feet and found herself in the middle of the room laughing when she came to herself, the precious picture still clasped in her hand.
"Oh, foolish heart, wake up!" she cried with another laugh. "It's dawn, and my lover is coming! It's his day! No more sleep—it's too wonderful! I'm going to count every hour until I hear his step—every minute of every hour, foolish heart!"
She looked out the window and it was raining. The overhanging boughs of the oaks were dripping on the tin roof of the bay window in which she was standing. She had dreamed of a wonderful sunrise this morning. But it didn't matter—the rain didn't matter. The slow, familiar dropping on the roof suggested the nearness of her lover. They would sit in some shadowy corner hand in hand and love all the more tenderly. The raindrops were the drum beat of a band playing the march that was bringing him nearer with each throb. The mocking-bird that had often waked her with his song was silent, hovering somewhere in a tree beneath the thick leaves. She had expected him to call her to-day with the sweetest lyric he had ever sung. Somehow it didn't matter. Her soul was singing the song that makes all other music dumb.
"My love is coming!" she murmured joyfully. "My love is coming!"
And then she stood for an hour in brooding, happy silence and watched the ghost-like trees come slowly out of the mists. To her shining eyes there were no mists. The gray film that hung over the waking world was a bridal veil hiding the blushing face of the earth from the sun-god lover who was on his way over the hills to clasp her in his burning arms!
For the first time in her memory she was supremely happy.
Every throb of pain that belonged to the past was lost in the sea of joy on which her soul had set sail. In the glory of his love pain was only another name for joy. All she had suffered was but the preparation for this supreme good. It was all the more wonderful, this fairy world into which she had entered, because the shadows had been so deep in her lonely childhood.
There really hadn't been any past! She couldn't remember the time she had not known and loved Tom. Love filled the universe, past, present and future. There was no task too hard for her hands, no danger she was not ready to meet. The hungry heart had found its own.
Through the long hours of the day she waited without impatience. Each tick of the tiny clock on the mantel brought him nearer. The hands couldn't turn back! She watched them with a smile as she sat in the gathering twilight.