'Kommt einmal.But I thought it never would!'
'Ah, what do you know about it? I am very tired of living without you, Wych!'
'Yes.'Words were like sighs to-day.
'Yes? Do you say so? What do you know? There has been all these weeks a visionary presence of youthat was not youflitting before me continually; standing beside me, coming and going, by night and by day, with the very rustle of your garments and the look of your brown eyes; but I could not touch it, and it did not speak to me; it smiled at me, but the lips were silent; and the eyes sparkled and were sometimes wistful, but it passed on and vanished. It mocked me, it tantalized me. The experience was good for me perhaps; I was obliged to remind myself that I had something else to live for. In the night watches this presence came and brushed by melooked in at the doorstood between the rising sun and my eyeshovered like a vision in the moonlight; sorrowed over me when I was weary, and comforted me when I was sick. I mean, the vision did; but the fact of the vision tantalized me. Is this hand true flesh and blood?' He tried it with his lips. A shadow as of what had been came over the girl's face. She answered unsteadily
'You did not stand by me in my watches. You have been off at the very ends of the earth!AndO won't you let me go and get off my habit?'
'How long will you take?'
'Two minutes.'
If there were suspicious wet eyelashes when Miss Wych came back, she had at least by that time got herself in hand, as well as got rid of her habit. She came in noiseless and grave and quiet, in a soft shimmering rustle of deep red silk, and held out her hand again.
'You should not have stirred out, such a cold day,' she said. 'But come into the other room; it is warmer there.'
Dane had not sat down, he was standing watching for her; and now drew her within his arms again, in a seeming ignoring of her invitation.