‘I came,’ said he, ‘because I received your letter.’
Her face was white with anguish; his, on the contrary, flushed, eager, triumphant.
‘But did you not find the note which I put in your pocket?’ she murmured, gazing at him with frightened eyes. ‘I thought you would be sure to find it. The other was not—was not really mine. I had to write what he wanted.’
‘I know,’ he answered blithely. ‘I could see it plainly enough. It was not that which brought me home. It was your own precious little note—the little line which laid bare your heart to me. I had already sailed before I found it, but we touched at Queenstown and I landed there and took the first boat home. I have travelled night and day since.’
She was shaking like a reed in the wind. ‘But—I begged you not to come,’ she whispered.
‘You begged me not to come, sweet, and so I guessed, I knew—you betrayed your secret, my dear love, and I felt my own power.’
‘No, no,’ she gasped; ‘you must not speak to me like this, Richard—I will not listen. You know quite well that I cannot listen. I belong to another man!’
But Richard bent nearer still, his face alight with the same inexplicable triumph—a triumph that was almost fierce.
‘You belong to me,’ he said; and his words were perhaps the more passionate because spoken so low. ‘You have belonged to me from the first. Even from the moment when I saw you in the picture I said to myself—’
‘Oh, no,’ pleaded Rosalie, in tones as passionate as his, but infinitely piteous. ‘Do not say it, Richard—do not—do not put it into words!’