"No," he responded, reasonably enough, "I've merely dropped in from the overland route. I made up my mind I'd get at you somehow by Christmas Day, and I have. But before I was allowed to go to you, where I supposed you to be, I was made to come here. For some mysterious reason of her own that sister of yours, before she went anywhere else, insisted on visiting Ordino's Restaurant; for an explanation, if you want one, I can only refer you to Marjorie."
Marjorie! Behind him was a woman whose face, whose form, whose everything I knew. It seemed that "the woman who sat at the desk" recognised her also. She held out the locket.
"Madam, allow me to have the happiness to return to you your locket. That it is yours I am sure because of your portrait which is in it. You have scarcely altered at all since the day it was taken."
I snatched it from her.
"Give it to me!" I stormed. "Since, through all these years, it has been held in such safe keeping, Marjorie, won't you take your locket back again?"
She had never moved her eyes from off my face, just as I had kept mine on hers. She moved a little forward. And--then I had her in my arms and her cheek was next to mine, and the locket was in her hand, and--we both of us were crying--I admit it.... Oh, yes, it was a miracle of grace and healing, since by the grace of God the open wound was healed. For us--for Marjorie and me--the life worth living is no longer in the land of ghosts. We are living it now, together; dear wife! together.
And it is universally admitted that we are the best customers Ordino's Restaurant has. Those two young persons have been there again and again since then, with their dolls, whom they are still instructing in the proper manner of eating a banana. I should be afraid to estimate how many bananas they have themselves consumed in the process of instruction. And to think that that Christmas miracle all came about because that child intruded herself into my apartments--actually!--with a view of showing me how to make a fire!
In itself, was that not a miracle too?
[OUR MUSICAL COMEDY]
"I forbid you to do it!"