Rufus remained in New York as many weeks as he had expected to remain days. He fixed the date of his return to Reboth time after time, but when the day arrived he found some excuse for remaining a day or two longer. He did not call to see Madeline every day. Indeed, sometimes for days on the stretch he did not go near her house, but he discovered that New York furnished endless opportunities for meeting. He got to know when she went shopping, and when she rode or drove in the park, and so he way-laid her at all sorts of unexpected times, and discovered that his interest in her movements was the all-absorbing concern of his life.
Their conversation that winter evening on the Downs was picked up at the point at which it broke off, and Madeline got a yet clearer insight into the human document that had fascinated her from the first.
Rufus opened his heart to Madeline as he never did to any other. Her sympathy touched the deepest chords of his emotion, her generosity won his confidence.
Bit by bit the truth was revealed to her that she, under God, had been his salvation. Her quick imagination saw the path along which he had travelled. His loss of faith, his gropings in the desert of a barren philosophy.
She saw, too—not that he told her in so many words—that the loss of all sense of accountability was destroying the moral basis of conduct. That his honour was saved to him because he won back his faith.
It was no small satisfaction to her that she, in the supreme crisis of his life, had been his helper and his inspiration. If he had saved her, she, in a yet deeper sense, had saved him.
That the same thought should grow almost unconsciously in the minds and hearts of both was natural—perhaps inevitable. In due course it would blossom into speech.
He returned to Reboth in December—business demanded his presence—but he was back in New York again in January. Madeline looked up with a start of surprise when he was shown into the room in which she was reading.
"I hope I do not intrude?" he said, hesitatingly.