Suddenly he fancied he heard a light foot coming along the street--now it ascended the steps--seemed to pause a moment at the door, which was ajar--and then to come through the dark entry--a footstep he knew so well! but no, impossible! She is far away or could his thoughts have had the power--? A hand is laid on the door knob; Edwin starts up with a beating heart, is about to say: "Who is there?" and prepares to reconcile himself to see a strange form enter, when the door opens, and Leah who has witnessed every thing that has just taken place before the house,--with what emotion! standing unnoticed among the crowd, not daring to approach!--appears, trembling from head to foot, like a criminal before her judge, on the threshold of the room she had left with such an agitated soul.
Another instant and she was clasped in his arms. As if beside himself in the exuberance of this unprecedented happiness, he raised the tottering form and carried, rather than led her to the sofa.
"Leah!" he exclaimed, "is it you?--you in bodily form clasped to my heart again? I hold, I feel you, come, speak one word, compose yourself--oh! you do not know what you have done for me in not going away!"
Meantime she had recovered from her bewilderment, but was still incapable of uttering a word. But he--all that he had just said in imagination, his newly awakened, passionate love, his wooing for her heart, the doubts and fears of a lover, he now poured forth aloud, while again and again seeking with his quivering lips her hands, her cheeks, the quiet mouth for which he had so ardently longed. "And you are here," he cried, "you have not fled from me, have not left a poor defenceless mortal alone in his need; no, my brave, faithful wife, now for the first time wholly mine and fairer and happier than ever, and all the idols which I had beside you, have crumbled into ruin forever."
"Oh Edwin," she whispered, "you make me both happy and miserable. You do not know, I am a bad wife--mean and cowardly, and not worthy to have you idolize me so. Oh! that this must be said now, but I must not allow any falsehood to come between us--you must see me as I am, even if you take back the treasure you have just poured into my lap."
"Speak out, if it must be told," he said with his brightest smile. "I am curious to see how far a person who has just saved another's life, can succeed in appearing odious."
He held her hands firmly clasped in his, but she glided down on the carpet before him, and on her knees, like a grievous sinner, confessed all that we already know. He let her talk on only interrupting now and then by an ironical word or saucy laugh. "Have you finished?" he asked, when she paused. She nodded, but made no effort to rise.
"Your sins are heavy," said he. "Above all, that of having given another man, even though he be a friend, to whom I do not grudge any good thing, the kiss which I myself so shamefully neglected to take with me, when I set out early this morning. However, in consideration that I too did not escape from the magic castle entirely unscathed, the only penance imposed upon you shall be, that in the future, if you want to kiss your own husband, you must never suppose that such folly does not beseem thinking beings, who have made a sensible marriage, but allow your heart every sweet absurdity--as in this hour. Leah, were there ever two happier mortals?"
"I fear I shall not survive the joy--" she murmured. Then withdrawing from his embrace she continued: "You are crushing me,--and you must be very gentle with me now--not for my own sake--Edwin, you do not yet know--I--I bear another life--"
This earth has joys that no heavenly joy can surpass, and which can be described by no human tongue.