"Ah, Rosalie, you did not think! But--but it was natural you should wish
to see me...."

"But, as soon as I saw you, I knew that--that--" She broke down again
and wept.

"I will tell you about her, Rosalie--" His fingers stroked her hair,
and, bending over her, his face was near her hands.

"No, no, tell me nothing--oh, if you tell me!--"

"She came to hear from me what she ought to have heard from the Notary.
She has had great trouble--the man--her child--and I have helped her,
told her--" His face was so near now that his breath was on her hair.
She suddenly raised her head and clasped his face in her hands.

"I knew--oh, I knew, I knew...!" she wept, and her eyes drank his.

"Rosalie, my life!" he cried, clasping her in his arms.

The love that was in him, new-born and but half understood, poured
itself out in broken words like her own. For him there was no outside
world; no past, no Kathleen, no Billy; no suspicion, or infidelity, or
unfaith; no fear of disaster; no terrors of the future. Life was Now to
him and to her: nothing brooded behind, nothing lay before. The candle
spluttered and burnt low in the socket.

CHAPTER XLI. IT WAS MICHAELMAS DAY

Not a cloud in the sky, and, ruling all, a sweet sun, liberal in
warmth and eager in brightness as its distance from the northern world
decreased. As Mrs. Flynn entered the door of the post-office she sang
out to Maximilian Cour, with a buoyant lilt: "Oh, isn't it the fun o'
the world to be alive!"

The tailor over the way heard it, and lifted his head with a smile;
Rosalie Evanturel, behind the postal wicket, heard it, and her face swam
with colour. Rosalie busied herself with the letters and papers for a
moment before she answered Mrs. Flynn's greeting, for there were ringing
in her ears the words she herself had said a few days before: "It is
good to live, isn't it?"

To-day it was so good to live that life seemed an endless being and
a tireless happy doing--a gift of labour, an inspiring daytime, and
a rejoicing sleep. Exaltation, a painful joy, and a wide embarrassing
wonderment possessed her. She met Mrs. Flynn's face at the wicket with
shining eyes and a timid smile.

"Ah, there y'are, darlin'!" said Mrs. Flynn. "And how's the dear father
to-day?"

"He seems about the same, thank you."

"Ah, that's foine. Shure, if we could always be 'about the same,' we'd
do. True for you, darlin', 'tis as you say. If ould Mary Flynn could be
always ''bout