MISTRESS FAWCETT. You have conquered. But wait until I am out of this room. (She falls heavily on her crutch, and hobbles out. Rachael holds her breath until the door closes behind her, then runs forward and lowers the bar. Hamilton enters. He is hatless. His long cape is torn and covered with leaves and mould. He closes and bars the door behind him, and Rachael, seeing him safe, and her desire so near to fulfilment, experiences a revulsion of feeling. She falls back, and hurriedly fetching a pan of coals from a corner, fires them, and mixes a punch.) RACHAEL (hurriedly). You are cold. You are exhausted. In a moment I will give you a hot drink. [Hamilton, after a long look at her, throws himself into a chair by the table, and stares at the floor, his hand at his head.] HAMILTON. Thank you. I need it. I feel as if all the hurricane were in my head. RACHAEL (pouring the punch into a silver goblet). Drink. HAMILTON. Gratefully! (He raises the goblet.) I drink--to the hurricane. RACHAEL (she moves restlessly about, but remains on the other side of the table). Tell me of your journey here. I should think you would be gray and old! Ah, the color comes back to your face! You are young again, already. HAMILTON (he has drained the goblet and set it on the table; he rises, and looks full at her). Did you doubt that I would come? RACHAEL (speaking lightly, and averting her eyes). I thought you were on St. Kitts. HAMILTON (vehemently). Still I would have come. I knew the hurricane would give you to me. And out there, fighting inch by inch, the breath beaten out of my body, my arms almost torn from their sockets, maddened by the terrible confusion, I still knew that Nature was driving me to you, as she has separated us since the day I came, with her smiling, intolerable calm-- RACHAEL (still half frivolous under the sudden wrench from tragic despair). And, after that terrible experience, you still have love and romance in you! I should want a warm bed, and then--to-morrow--to-morrow--we will sit on the terrace and watch the calm old sun go down into the calm old sea, with not a thought for the torn old earth-- HAMILTON. Rachael! I did not come here to jest. RACHAEL. I must go to my mother! She is alone! _What_ have I done? HAMILTON. Stay where you are! Do you mean that you wish you had not opened the door? RACHAEL (she hesitates a moment, then raises her eyes to his, and answers distinctly). No! (She is leaning on the table, which she has deliberately kept between them. Hamilton throws himself into his chair, and, leaning forward, clasps her wrists with his hands.) HAMILTON. This hurricane is the end of all things, or the beginning. RACHAEL (she throws her head back, with a gesture of triumph). The beginning!