The afternoon after my consideration of the matter in this light I spent in a long walk and debate with myself.
When I returned home, looking as usual on the hall table for the longed-for telegram, I saw one. (My heart started). I picked it up; came quietly into the study and, at the window, opened it.
She was found.
I threw up my face and laughed. Found! found! found! found at last.
A letter from her. This:
'I cannot give you up. I am ill. Do come to me. I am sorry for it. It was wrong of me. Will you forgive me and come? 'R. H.'
'Forgive you? Come?' I said, laughing: 'Oh, little Rosebud, I will forgive you for forgiving me! I will come to you, and keep you, and' Ending in laughter and tears.
To have found her again! To know that I had not … Nay, I knew nothing yet! And she was ill.
How long it took for the gold-incited hansom to get to the place! How long the Anglicised Italian woman took to tell me where she was! But upstairs I went at last: up, up, to the very top of the house, the dusty, dingy attic. She was there.
I knocked softly at the door and, on her voice saying that I was to come in, went in, and stood for a moment looking. I had but seen her pale worn face on the pillow before she had started up with a wild cry. And then I was holding her in my arms, and she me, silently.
In a little I felt how she squeezed me in her old dear child's way, so quietly, pulling me in to her, and I bent back my head so as to look at her face. But she would not let me: turning round her head and pressing it to my neck, in her old dear child's way. It seemed a dream that we had ever been away from one another. And then all at once she kissed me on the lips, such a long kiss; and hid her face again, and sighed contentedly. And so we remained in one another's arms some time—in perfect silence.
