him, and seeing him, and
telling him that her love was his. She wished the geraniums were less
rose-red and more scarlet in hue. It was the scarlet he had approved
of--that evening that he and she the little Polish lady had dined
together.
She had not long to wait. With a quick, intense consciousness she heard
the hansom drive up, and the rapid knock that followed; her heart
throbbed through the seconds of silence; then she knew that he was
ascending the stair; then it seemed to her as if the life would go out
of her altogether. But when he flung the door open and came toward her;
when he caught her two hands in his--one hand in each hand--and held
them tight; when, in a silence that neither cared to break, he gazed
into her rapidly moistening eyes--then the full tide of joy and courage
returned to her heart, and she was proud that she had sent him that
answer. For some seconds--to be remembered during a life time--they
regarded each other in silence; then he released her hands, and began to
put back the hair from her forehead as if he would see more clearly into
the troubled deeps of her eyes; and then, somehow--perhaps to hide her
crying--she buried her face in his breast, and his arms were around her,
and she was sobbing out all the story of her waiting and her despair.
"What!" said he, cheerfully, to calm and reassure her, "the brave
Natalie to be frightened like that!"
"I was alone," she murmured. "I had no one to speak to; and I could not
understand. Oh, my love, my love, you do not know what you are to me!"
He kissed her; her cheeks were wet.
"Natalie," said he in a low voice, "don't forget this: we may be
separated--that is possible--I don't know; but if we live fifty years
apart from each other--if you never hear one word more from me or of
me--be sure of this, that I am thinking of you always, and loving you,
as I do at this moment when my arms are around you. Will you remember
that? Will you believe that--always?"
"I could not think otherwise," she answered. "But now that you are with
me--that I can hear you speak to me--" And at this point her voice
failed her altogether; and he could only draw her closer to him, and
soothe and caress her, and stroke the raven-black hair that had never
before thrilled his fingers with its soft, strange touch.
"Perhaps," she said at last, in a broken and hesitating voice, "you will
blame me for having said what I have said. I have had no
girl-companions; scarce
|