“I stayed indoors all the morning, fearing to go out lest she should telephone me. But no sign came, and I grew more and more restless and anxious. She was too free and frank for coquetry, but her silence and evasiveness made me feel that, for some reason, she did not wish to hear what she knew I meant to say. Could it be that she was, after all, more conventional, less genuine, than I had thought? I went again and again over the whole maddening round of conjecture; but the only conclusion I could rest in was that, if she loved me as I loved her, she would be as determined as I was to let no obstacle come between us during the days that were left. “The luncheon-hour came and passed, and there was no word from her. I had ordered my trap to be ready, so that I might drive over as soon as she summoned me; but the hours dragged on, the early twilight came, and I sat here in this very chair, or measured up and down, up and down, the length of this very rug--and still there was no message and no letter. “It had grown quite dark, and I had ordered away, impatiently, the servant who came in with the lamps: I couldn’t _bear_ any definite sign that the day was over! And I was standing there on the rug, staring at the door, and noticing a bad crack in its panel, when I heard the sound of wheels on the gravel. A word at last, no doubt--a line to explain.... I didn’t seem to care much for her reasons, and I stood where I was and continued to stare at the door. And suddenly it opened and she came in. “The servant followed her with a light, and then went out and closed the door. Her face looked pale in the lamplight, but her voice was as clear as a bell. “‘Well,’ she said, ‘you see I’ve come.’ “I started toward her with hands outstretched. ‘You’ve come--you’ve come!’ I stammered. “Yes; it was like her to come in that way--without dissimulation or explanation or excuse. It was like her, if she gave at all, to give not furtively or in haste, but openly, deliberately, without stinting the measure or counting the cost. But her quietness and serenity disconcerted me. She did not look like a woman who has yielded impetuously to an uncontrollable impulse. There was something almost solemn in her face. “The effect of it stole over me as I looked at her, suddenly subduing the huge flush of gratified longing. “‘You’re here, here, here!’ I kept repeating, like a child singing over a happy word. “‘You said,’ she continued, in her grave clear voice, ‘that we couldn’t go on as we were--’ “‘Ah, it’s divine of you!’ I held out my arms to her. “She didn’t draw back from them, but her faint smile said, ‘Wait,’ and lifting her hands she took the pins from her hat, and laid the hat on the table.