At that touch and that voice the world seemed to give a sort of bewildering half-turn. I hardly know how to express it, but at once it seemed not awful--not even unusual--for portraits to become flesh--only most natural, most right, most unspeakably fortunate. I laid my hand on hers. I looked from her to my portrait. I could not see it in the firelight. "We are not strangers," I said. "Oh no, not strangers." Those luminous eyes were looking up into mine--those red lips were near me. With a passionate cry--a sense of having suddenly recovered life's one great good, that had seemed wholly lost--I clasped her in my arms. She was no ghost--she was a woman--the only woman in the world. "How long," I said, "O love--how long since I lost you?" She leaned back, hanging her full weight on the hands that were clasped behind my head. "How can I tell how long? There is no time in hell," she answered. It was not a dream. Ah, no--there are no such dreams. I wish to God there could be. When in dreams do I see her eyes, hear her voice, feel her lips against my cheek, hold her hands to my lips, as I did that night--the supreme night of my life? At first we hardly spoke. It seemed enough-- "... after long grief and pain, To feel the arms of my true love Round me once again." * * * * * It is very difficult to tell this story. There are no words to express the sense of glad reunion, the complete realization of every hope and dream of a life, that came upon me as I sat with my hand in hers and looked into her eyes. How could it have been a dream, when I left her sitting in the straight-backed chair, and went down to the kitchen to tell the maids I should want nothing more--that I was busy, and did not wish to be disturbed; when I fetched wood for the fire with my own hands, and, bringing it in, found her still sitting there--saw the little brown head turn as I entered, saw the love in her dear eyes; when I threw myself at her feet and blessed the day I was born, since life had given me this? Not a thought of Mildred: all the other things in my life were a dream--this, its one splendid reality. "I am wondering," she said after a while, when we had made such cheer each of the other as true lovers may after long parting--"I am wondering how much you remember of our past." "I remember nothing," I said. "Oh, my dear lady, my dear sweetheart--I remember nothing but that I love you--that I have loved you all my life." "You remember nothing--really nothing?" "Only that I am yours; that we have both suffered; that----Tell me, my mistress dear, all that you remember. Explain it all to me. Make me understand. And yet----No, I don't want to understand. It is enough that we are together." If it was a dream, why have I never dreamed it again?