She halted there, elegantly dressed, having just returned from her drive, and for a moment we faced each other speechless.
“Mr Heaton!” she cried, and then, in breathless hurry arising from the sudden and joyful surprise, she rushed forward.
Our hands grasped. For the moment I could utter no word. The secretary, noticing our mutual embarrassment, discreetly withdrew, closing the door after him.
Once again I found myself, after those six lost years, alone with my love.
“At last!” I cried. “At last I have found you, after all these months!” I was earnestly gazing into her great dark eyes. She had altered but little since that night long ago at The Boltons, when I had discovered the traces of that hideous tragedy.
“And why have you come back to me now?” she inquired in a low, strained voice.
“I have striven long and diligently to find you,” I answered frankly, “because—because I wished to tell you how I love you—that I have loved you always—from the first moment that we met.”
A grave expression crossed her countenance.
“And yet you forsook me! You calmly broke off the secret engagement that we had mutually made, and left me without a single word. You have married,” she added resentfully, “therefore it is scarcely fitting that you should come here with a false declaration upon your lips.”
“It is no false declaration, I swear,” I cried. “As for my wife, I knew her not, and she is now dead.”