She was so absorbed that a step crossing the next room failed to attract her attention. She did not even hear the light tap at the door. But when it opened, and some one entered, closing the door behind him, she turned abruptly and faced the intruder, fully conscious now.
He was an officer, who tossed his cap away at sight of her, and he had the face she had been thinking of,—the same face, full of life, and more full of joyous excitement than she had ever seen it.
They stood so for a moment, the length of the room between them, gazing at each other, with some sense of floating in all that light, as if they were far up in the sky, they two alone, on their way to heaven.
Then the soldier held up some tiny object in his hand, and came rapidly forward.
"Fuori il verde!!" he cried out.
As in a dream, as though they were indeed being sucked up through the blue unsteady air, Aurora tried to pull the locket from her bosom, and desisted, for, throwing aside the faded leaf, D'Rubiera extended his arms with an "Aurora!" which held all pleading and all command, all passion and all delight, that love can give to the human voice.
Light as a gazelle she rushed into his embrace, pressing her cheek to his.
"Oh, my soldier! my soldier!" she murmured. "My soldier and my Love!"
"What a circuit I have made to reach you!" D'Rubiera said at length, holding her back at arm's length to look at her. "Are you glad to have me back, signora duchessa? Are you happy, my red rose?"
"And to think that you have entered the army again!" she said, drawing a caressing finger-tip along the gold-work on his sleeve.