Edith dropped her book, and started up in surprise. Lionel was half hidden behind Mrs. Garside, and for the moment Edith mistook him for a stranger. But he had not advanced three paces before she saw who he was, and in a moment she was as one transformed. Her mouth dimpled into smiles, tears came nestling into her eyes—tears of happiness—her heart beat fast, her cheeks flushed to the tint of the wild rose when its petals first open to the sun, and with a little inarticulate cry of joy she sprang forward to greet her lover. She sprang forward, and then she halted suddenly, while a look of sadness clouded her face for a moment. With a sigh that ended in a half sob she held out her hand. Lionel grasped it in both his.
“How long you have been away!” she said, as her eyes met his. Mrs. Garside slipped discreetly out of the room, and shut the door softly behind her.
Lionel lifted Edith’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he looked at her with the same eager, anxious gaze that she had bent on him—he looked and was satisfied. His heart told him that he was still loved as fondly as ever he had been. Edith, too, after that first hungry look, veiled her eyes modestly, but there was a wild whirl of happiness at her heart. Lionel drew her face up to his, and kissed her twice very tenderly. Then he led her to the sofa, and sat down beside her.
“Yes; I have been a very long time away,” he said at last. “But I am come to-day, Edith, to ask you to keep me by your side through life—never more to let me wander from you.”
Edith, in the first shock of her surprise, was too happy to speak. But her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on his hand, and her face, resting on his shoulder, where he had placed it, nestled still closer; her silent answer was more eloquent than any words.
“Edith, I left you—my letter told you why,” went on Lionel. “But all through the long dreary time when I was separated from you, my love for you never faltered, never wavered for one single moment. If I had never seen you again in this world, my heart’s last breath would still have been yours. Yesterday I was poor—to-day I am rich. Once more I can ask you, as I asked you three years ago, to be my wife. Do not tell me that I am asking for more than you can give.”
Edith’s faith in Lionel was so full and complete, her love for him so deep-rooted, that she never paused—as many young ladies would have done—before giving him back the affection which had all along been his, to demand from him the reason for his apparent desertion of her three years before. In that first flush of new-born happiness it was enough to know that her lover had come back to her: the why and the wherefore of his leaving could be explained afterwards.
“You know, Lionel, that my love is yours always—that it has been yours for a long long time,” said Edith, in accents that trembled a little in spite of herself. “But I never received any letter from you after that last one dated from some far-away town in America.”
“No letter!” exclaimed Lionel. “Not one explaining my reasons for releasing you from your engagement?”
“Never a single line, Lionel.”