Her hat lay upon the seat beside her, while she gazed out over the
beautiful world. He paused with a wildly beating heart in which joy and
agony fought for mastery, but, as she turned to see who this stranger
could be, thus breaking in upon her solitude, his voice, hoarse with
emotion, said aloud her name:
"Halcyone!"
She started to her feet, and then sank back upon the bench again
unsteadily, and he came forward to her side. They both realized that
they were alone here in the sunset--alone upon this summit of the world.
He sat down beside her and then he buried his face in his hands, letting
his cap fall; and all the pent-up misery and anguish of the past weeks
seemed to vibrate in his voice as he murmured:
"Ah, God!--my love!"
Her soft eyes melted upon him in deepest tenderness and sorrow. To see
him so pale and shattered, so changed from the splendid lover she had
known!
But he was there--beside her--and what mattered anything else? She
longed to comfort him and tend him with fond care. Had he been the
veriest outcast he would ever have found boundless welcome and solace
waiting for him in her loving heart.
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