He enthroned her on the steps of the porch, where as a child she had been enthroned, when he as her boy-lover had sat, as now, at her feet and listened to the dainty caresses of her voice. Only now he held her hand in his and placed it on his cheek and kissed it fondly, as he listened and told her of how he had come at last to receive the letter.
At this she was frightened. She wanted to cradle his head upon her bosom, now, and hold forth a hand to shield him from danger. She felt that the perils for them both were clustered about his fearless head and that hers was the right to protect.
“Oh, please be careful, Adam, dear,” she implored. “That man is a terrible man. Oh, I wish you had let him go. You will be careful, dear. You must be careful, and watchful, every moment.”
His reply was a kiss and a boyish laugh. Now that he had her once more, he said, and now that nothing should ever part them again, his world was complete, and there were no dangers, nor evils, nor sorrows.
Then he begged her to tell him of the years that had passed. He petted her fondly, as she spoke of her long, long wait. She seemed to him thrice more beautiful, in the calm and dignity of her womanhood, which had laid not so much as a faded petal on her beauty and her endless youth.
He exchanged a history of heart-aches, matching with one of his own every pang she had ever endured. There was something ecstatic, now, in the light of their new-found rapture, in recounting those long days of sadness and despair. Every pain thus rehearsed drew them the closer, till their love took on a sacredness, as if suffering and constancy had wedded them long before. Like parents who have buried the children they loved, they were made subdued and yet more truly fervent, more absolute in the divine passion which held them heart to heart.
And so, at last, when Garde was sure that Adam ought to go, they walked hand in hand to the gate together.
“Sweetheart, let me go outside, for a moment,” said Adam, quickly shutting the barrier between them. “Now, with your two dear hands in mine, it is just as it was six years ago. The night is the same, your beauty is the same, our hearts and love are the same as before, and nothing has ever come between us—except this gate.”
He kissed her hands and her sweet face, as he had done on that other happy night.
“And we can open the gate,” said Garde, in a little croon of delight.