"I could not go while you were here," he answered, seating himself beside her.
She sighed like a child. She seemed to-day many years younger than usual, and Claude looked at her curiously, wondering at her manner.
"Deborah," he said, gravely, without offering to touch her, "I am going back—home. Will you come with me? Will you trust me? Will you let me make a new life, a new home, for you?"
She caught her breath, as a child, after a long crying-spell, sobs, reminiscently. Then she sat silent while he waited.
"I can't be happy here after—last night," she said, at length.
"I will try to make you happy."
She made no answer, but perhaps he read her mind, for he grew troubled. One thought held each of them. It was that of the fair and stately Duchess—la Châteauroux, whom Claude had loved. And which picture was the fairer, Claude's memory or Deborah's imagination, it were hard to tell.
After a moment or two the pause became more than uncomfortable. Both sat in growing rigidity, looking straight before them, thinking, helplessly. Then, all at once, Deborah, with fearful hesitation, turned her head and looked into his face. And suddenly, when Claude's poor hope was all but dead, one of her hands, cold and tremulous, crept into that passive one of his that lay beside her on the seat. It was her answer. How the promise was sealed—need not be told.
Twilight deepened over the shadow of the dead day. Behind the black, lacy tree-tops of the forest a sunset flush pulsated in crimson and gold. From the still garden the evening fragrance, intoxicating, heart-stilling, to which neither the sunny morning odors nor the night's holy incense could be compared, floated in warm, rich breaths about the figures of the man and woman whose lives had come to join each other over wide seas and many lands. The spell of the evening was over them both. Their eyes wandered. Their thoughts were still. Hand in hand, two of God's pilgrims met here to rest a little ere they moved on again, they sat, silent, nerveless, feeling, perhaps, more of the universal love than that of individuals. No prophecy of storms to come disturbed their hour. Only the garden and the timeless twilight enfolded them. The bird-songs, one by one, melted away. The waves whispered unutterable things. And so, out upon the pale sunset, hanging tremulous as by a thread of heaven, came a fair silver jewel—the evening star. Deborah's eyes beheld it, and were riveted upon its liquid beauty.
"Look," she breathed, gently; "they call it the emblem of hope."