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; scarcely any woman to tell me what I should do and say.  But—­but I thought you were going to America—­I thought I should never see you again—­I was lonely and miserable; and when I saw you again, how could I help saying I was glad?  How could I help saying that, and more?—­for I never knew it till now.  Oh, my love, do you know that you have become the whole world to me?  When you are away from me, I would rather die than live!”

“Natalie—­my life!”

“I must say that to you—­once—­that you may understand—­if we should never see each other again.  And now—­”

She gently released herself from his embrace, and went and sat down by the table.  He took a chair near her and held her hand.  She would not look up, for her eyes were still wet with tears.