The clock ticked on in the kitchen, the fire crackled on the hearth, far on the down a sheep-bell tinkled and was still. He sat there, immobile, rigid, like a statue of a man, his heart beating a desperate tune of hope and fear. Could she forgive him? Dared he hope it? This moment, so long foreseen, held terrors he had not foretold for it. Was it possible that this deceit of his should come between them, even now? He almost held his breath in a passion of suspense, and the moments fell past slowly, slowly. He could bear it no longer. He sprang up, walked across the room, came back, leaned on the mantelpiece so that she could not see his face. "Oh, Princess, oh, my dearest!" he said, brokenly, "don't say that you can't forgive me." She, too, had risen and stood beside him. Now she laid her hand on his shoulder. "It's not that," she said. "I don't know how to tell you. I've nothing to forgive--unless you have, too." He turned to meet her eyes, and they fell before his. "Oh, Edward," she said, with a little laugh that was half tears, "don't look like that! My dear, I knew it all the time." And there they were, clinging to each other like two children saved from a shipwreck. "You knew?" he said at last. "Of course I knew," she said. They drew back to let their eyes meet in that look of incredulous gladness that lovers know when, at last, all barriers are down and true love meets true love without veils or reservations. "Thank God for this day," he said, reverently. And at that a thunderous clamor at the house-door broke in on their dream, a clatter and a clangor, a rattling of chains and a volley of resonant reverberatory barks. "Why, it's Charles!" he cried. "How could he know I was here?" How, indeed? For it was indeed Charles, incredibly muddy and wet, bounding round in the room the moment the doors were opened, knocking over a chair, clattering the fire-irons, and coming to heavy anchor, with all four feet muddy, on the edge of her white gown. "I must go and chain him up in the stable," he said, when Charles had been fed with the remains of the supper. "You won't be afraid to be left alone in the house, Princess, dear?" "I sha'n't be afraid now," she said, caressing Charles's bullet head. "You see, it's all different now. How could I be afraid in my own home?" THE END * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Page 42, "Her" changed to "her" (her to suggest it) Page 116, "wier" changed to "weir" (the weir-pool below) Page 197, hyphen added between "to" and "find" (stealth-and-blush-to-find-it-fame) End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Incredible Honeymoon, by E. Nesbit