With his wife's arms about him, Westboro' leaned on the garden wall, his ashen face lifted to her.
"I've only one arm," he said. He put it around her and he drew her down as close to him as he could. He felt her face warm against his, wet against his with tears. As the Duke, who, Bulstrode said, was no lover, kissed his wife, the dial seemed to sing its motto aloud.
"You were coming to me?" he breathed. "Do you forgive me? ... Then," said Westboro', satisfied by what he heard, "I'm cured. I love you—I love you."
The woman could not find her voice, but as she held him she was the warmest, sweetest prop that ever a wounded man leaned upon. After a few seconds she helped him to rise, helped him on, and he found his balance and his equilibrium to be very wonderful under the circumstances, and managed to reach the door-sill. Mellon and the maids were there, and as the Duchess passed in, leading her husband, she bade them send for a doctor as fast as they could and to send at once for Bulstrode at the castle.
Westboro's wound had become a sort of intoxication to him, and he assured her, "I'll be all right in an hour. I need no one but you; send them all away, all away."
He had never commanded her before, he had let her rule him, he had been indifferent to her disobedience. But now she did what he bade her, and led him to the drawing-room, suddenly repossessed of all its old charm; led him to the lounge, where he sank down. Here, by his side, she gave him stimulants and bathed his head and hands, waiting for the doctor to come; and Westboro', like his ancestors who had fought in the King's wars, bore up like a man with no resemblance whatsoever to the amorous cavalier whose curls had met the dust of the road for love of Queen Elizabeth.
The Duchess found him that best of all things—very much of a man, and knew that he was hers. And he, more wild with love for her than suffering physical pain, found her a woman and knew that she loved him and that she was his.
The house, so deserted and desolate an hour ago, grew fresh, warm, and rosy as over the west meadows the sunset, gilding the wall and The Dials, flushed the windows red, and the deserted bird's-nest, lately "filled with snow" appeared to have, as the light rained upon it, filled itself with roses. So, an hour later, it seemed to Bulstrode, when he came and found it housing the lovers.