“Ah, yes!” she answered. “You are quite right. I cannot live without you. It is impossible. I have tried and have failed.”
“Then in future you are mine, darling,” I cried, in joyous ecstasy. “Let the past remain as a warning to us both. Not only were you inconstant, but I was also; therefore on my part there is nothing to forgive. Let happiness now be ours because we have both discovered that only in each other can we find that perfect love which to the pure and upright is as life itself.”
For me the face of the world had changed in those moments. A new and brighter life had come to me.
“Yes,” she answered in a low tone, which showed plainly how affected she was. And raising her full, ready lips to mine, she kissed me passionately, adding: “You are generous, indeed, Clifton. I feared and dreaded always that you had cast me aside as fickle and unworthy a thought.”
“No, no!” I said, my arm around her protectingly. “Think no more of that. Don’t let us remember the past, dearest, but look to a brighter future—a future when you will always be with me, my companion, my helpmate, my wife!”
There were tears in her dark eyes, tears of boundless joy and abundant happiness. She had come there half expecting a rebuff, yet had found me ready and eager to forgive; therefore, in a few moments her emotion overcame her, and she hid her tear-stained face in her hands.
The prophecy of the Woman of Evil had been fulfilled. Yet at what cost had I gained this felicity? At the cost of a guilty silence—a silence that shielded her from the exposure of some mysterious, unknown guilt.
Such thoughts I endeavoured to cast from me in the dreamy happiness of those felicitous moments. Yet as I held Muriel in my arms and kissed her pale, tear-stained cheeks, I could not help reflecting upon the veil of mystery which surrounded the woman whose inexplicable influence had caused my love to return to me. In my sudden happiness there still remained the dregs of bitterness—the strange death of the man who had been my most intimate friend, and the demoniacal power possessed by the woman to whom I had unconditionally bound myself in return for Muriel’s love.
The words I uttered caused her to hesitate, to hold her breath, and look up at me with those dark, brilliant eyes which had so long ago held me beneath their spell. Again her hand trembled, again tears rose in her eyes, but at last, when I had repeated my sentence, she faltered a response.
It was but a single word, but it caused my heart to bound for joy, and in an instant raised me to the seventh heaven of delight. Her response from that moment bound us in closer relationship than before.