It was a night like this when the first glow of joy had suffused his life; and then had come that night, that wonderful night, which began, in the lurid fire, and ended foully with Preston's words. Here was the key: she too loved, as he had, and this feeling which had drawn them together from the very moment when he had looked from the helpless form on the hospital chair to her had grown, surging up in her heart as in his—until, until she had taken this last stern step, and had—
He had begun to walk once more, heading south, retracing his steps by the most direct line. To leave her thus, with all the horror; thus when she had reached out to him—oh, the shame, the brutality of it! He hastened his steps almost to a run. Perhaps it was already too late; his cold, hard manner had killed her love, crushed her, and she had gone on to the next step. The night was cold now, but his hands were damp with a feverish sweat. How blind, not to have read at once, as she would have done, the whole deed! What she had done, she had done for him, for both, and he had left her to carry the full burden alone. Like a boy, he had wavered at the sight of what she had accomplished so swiftly, so competently, for their sake. To love shamefully, that was not in her, and she had put the cause of shame away. As he hurried on southwards, his thoughts flew out on this new track. She had made the way clear; he must go to her, take her, accept her acts with her love. They were one now.
It was late, past midnight, when he reached the long cross street that led to the lane of the cottage, and the buzz of the passing cars no longer disturbed the hoarse chorus of frogs. Sommers crept up the lane stealthily to the dark cottage, afraid for what he might find, chilled by the forbidding aspect of the place. Instead of entering the door, he paused by the open window and peered in. Within the gloom of the room he could make out her bent figure, her head fallen forward over her arms. She was sitting where he had left her, but the spell of her tense gaze had broken. She had laid her head upon the table to weep, and had not raised it all these hours. The night wind soughed into the room through the open window, drifting a piece of paper about the floor, poking into the gloom of the interior beyond.
Sommers noiselessly pushed open the door and entered the room. The bent figure did not heed the tread of his steps. He stood over her, knelt down, and wrapped her in his arms.
"Alves!" he whispered.
She roused herself as from a dream and turned her face to his, wonderingly.
"Alves," he stammered, reading eagerly the sombre lines of her face, "I have come back—for always."
Then she spoke, and her voice had a mechanical ring, as if for a long time it had not been used.
"But you left me—why did you come back?"
"You know," he answered, his feverish face close to her white forehead. "You know!" The face was so cold, so large and sombre, that it seemed to chill his fever.