Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/329

Rh by the languorous June air blowing from the south, set out to walk home. I walked listlessly enough, and unthinkingly turned at the bottom of the Strand down Northumberland Avenue on to the Embankment. It was a foolish thing to do, for my mind at once filled with the memory of my first walk with Angel from Vauxhall on that inclement autumn night. I reached my rooms utterly dispirited, and opened the door with that sinking of the heart at their loneliness to which I had grown so used. I went into the sitting-room, groped for the matches on the mantel-piece, struck one, and dropped it, with a sharp cry; its light had shown me Angel sitting in her easy-chair, looking at me with a white, strained face. I stood quite still, utterly taken aback, striving to collect my wits, scattered by the shock; then I said, in a trembling voice I hardly knew for my own, "Why—why—have you come back?"

"I couldn't—stay away—any longer," she said, almost under her breath, but not so low that I did not catch the spent weariness of her tone.

A flood of joy surged through me, overwhelmingly. I fell on one knee beside her, caught her hands and kissed them again and again, murmuring, "Oh, why did you go away—why did you leave me?"

I felt her stiffen at the touch of my lips, and then relax to my kisses. Then she began to sob, slowly and heavily. I put my arm round her and