A footstep sounded in the neighbourhood of her retreat, but she did not raise her eyes: it was some straggler, probably, hastening to rejoin the others. She could hear the bushes rustling, as though brushed by a passing form, and kept very still; she wanted nobody to speak to her, nobody even to look at her. But now the step faltered, halted—there was a pause; and then rapid feet began to descend towards where she sat. She raised her eyes, first in surprise and a little irritation, then in incredulous wonder, then—oh, what was it that Richard saw in them? In a moment he was bending over her and both her hands were clasped in his. Was it that particular moment that Job Hunt chose to pursue his investigations, or did the acknowledged lovers remain thus longer than they knew? Rosalie could never afterwards tell, nor could Richard. They felt as if they were in a dream; time, place, circumstances, were alike forgotten; a vague undefined bliss—the intangible bliss of dreams—haunted them both, and in the minds of both lurked the same dread of awakening. It was Rosalie who was first recalled to life. Her eyes, which had been fixed on Richard’s face, dropped gradually to his hands; gazed idly, first at those hands, then at her own which he was holding; then the idea gradually took shape in her mind—those were her hands, Rosalie Fiander’s hands, that were lying in Richard’s clasp; and they had no right to be there! She snatched them away instantly, and the charm was broken. ‘You have come back!’ she cried. ‘Why did you come back?’ ‘I came,’ said he, ‘because I received your letter.’ Her face was white with anguish; his, on the contrary, flushed, eager, triumphant. ‘But did you not find the note which I put in your pocket?’ she murmured, gazing at him with frightened eyes. ‘I thought you would be sure to find it. The other was not—was not really mine. I had to write what he wanted.’ ‘I know,’ he answered blithely. ‘I could see it plainly enough. It was not that which brought me home. It was your own precious little note—the little line which laid bare your heart to me. I had already sailed before I found it, but we touched at Queenstown and I landed there and took the first boat home. I have travelled night and day since.’ She was shaking like a reed in the wind. ‘But—I begged you not to come,’ she whispered. ‘You begged me not to come, sweet, and so I guessed, I knew—you betrayed your secret, my dear love, and I felt my own power.’ ‘No, no,’ she gasped; ‘you must not speak to me like this, Richard—I will not listen. You know quite well that I cannot listen. I belong to another man!’ But Richard bent nearer still, his face alight with the same inexplicable triumph—a triumph that was almost fierce. ‘You belong to me,’ he said; and his words were perhaps the more passionate because spoken so low. ‘You have belonged to me from the first. Even from the moment when I saw you in the picture I said to myself—’