Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/45

25 the gravel, and in her nervousness she was an age fumbling at the lock. Yet no sound of hers brought a word of greeting from the other side. He had not come! As she pulled the gate open she felt certain of it; and then beheld and heard him, advancing shyly through the sibilant grass, with some white thing in his hand, and a young moon just risen over Primrose Hill.

“Tom!” she cried softly. “You are come! Oh, thank God! I have kept you—”

The words failed upon her parted lips. He stood askance before her, shamefaced and never noticing her tremulous, outstretched hands. His own held out to her a folded note.

“Read that,” he said hoarsely. “I am only here because I had not money for the stamp!”

A great chill struck to the girl’s loyal heart. It was the doubt that had kept her awake; now a doubt no more. Her trembling ceased; she turned her back on Erichsen, and read by the moonlight the candid words that he had written in St. James’s Park.

He watched her with scarce a breath. His eyes lived upon her while they might. Her face had been turned away before he had the courage to raise his; but there was the white neck tapering to the nut-brown hair, the little ears half-hidden by ringlets, the thoughtful poise of the lithe, light body, all just as he had them by heart. The white arms struck him as a little thin, but then he had never before seen her in full evening dress. She was wearing pink crépe over white satin, high Venetian sleeves, and feathery fringes of pink and white satin rouleau; it was one more picture of her, and he thought the sweetest of all, to hang with the many already in his mind.

Meanwhile she had never turned her head; but now it