‘Dass uns die Liebe vereint!’ He saw nothing, heard nothing, until a footstep paused, as if arrested in surprise, beside him--a figure interposed itself between his eyes and the window at which he was gazing. ‘_Adrienne!_’ The name fell, like a sigh, without his will or wish, almost without his knowledge, from his lips. He scarcely knew himself, or where he was, or anything, except that she stood there, and had paused, stopped, was looking at him. It was light enough to see that she had recognised him on coming close to him, and that, when their eyes met, she was trembling. When she looked into his face, her own turned paler, and a startled ‘Oh!’ fell from her lips. For a moment they both stood silent thus. Then Myles, seeing that she still trembled and looked startled, remembered suddenly where he was, and how it all was. He bared his head and stood before her, saying, in a low voice, ‘Pardon me! I forgot! I will not intrude. I did not know you were here.’ He had turned to go, was absolutely moving, when she herself opened the wicket wide, and said, in an indescribable tone, ‘Will you leave me without one word, as before?’ The tremulous appeal was a command. He entered the garden, looking at her, as if awaiting a direction from her. But at last he said, ‘It was that which made me fear to look at you. I can scarcely believe you will speak to me. Do you mean,’ he added, with a sudden appeal in his voice--‘do you mean that I may come in, and--talk to you?’ For all answer Adrienne held out her right hand, and closed the wicket with the other, so that they stood together within the garden. Myles took that hand, but he could not at first speak. ‘Miss Blisset, I behaved unpardonably--like a ruffian--two years ago. I do not deserve your forgiveness.’ They had been moving towards the house, and they now stood in the almost dismantled drawing-room, by the open piano. ‘At first,’ said Adrienne, in a voice which still trembled, ‘I thought I never could forgive you. It was cruel on your part----’ ‘It was brutal--unpardonable.’ ‘No; you were mad with grief--I knew it afterwards--and you could not know what it was I had to say to you.’ ‘What was it?’ he asked, below his breath. ‘It was to say good-bye, and something more--to say that I feared I had been unkind! I had seemed to desert you--in your trouble, but that it had never been so in reality, for I had thought of you constantly; and,’ she added steadily, ‘to tell you, too, that I had heard something--that some report had been set going about you and me----’ ‘You heard _that_! It was to spare you that--it was because I was almost mad at the thought----’ ‘It was to tell you that I prized your friendship beyond all those slanders, and that nothing could ever shake it. I did wish to tell you that; but after you were gone, after you had left me in that manner, Myles, I dared not write.’