He came with great strides through the old ghost-like trees, whose withered boughs still held the swelling promise of the year's growth. He caught her in his arms, without a word. But she, like a child, clinging to him, cried, complaining:
"Oh, Harry, how late you are! Oh, how I have waited!"
"And I! ..." he made answer, almost inaudibly. "Eight years!"
His lips were on her eyelids as he spoke.
At this she dropped her head upon his breast, hiding her face; but he could see the crimson creep to the edge of the lace kerchief. There was a slackening of her arms about him, almost as if she would have knelt at his feet--there, in the lonely bare orchard.
He kept her close with his embrace; he had to stoop to hear her stammered words:
"Ah, hush!" cried he, quickly, his low voice vibrating with that tenderness for which there is no utterance. "Need there be this between us? Would I be here if I did not understand--if I did not know? ... The music is mine, at last--the music, Rosamond, that you kept silent, even from me. It is mine, at last--this is our wedding-day--the rest is nothing."
He raised her quivering face and looked into her eyes, deep, deep. The kerchief fell back from her white hair; the perfume from the fading rose was wafted to his nostrils.
"Oh, my white rose!" he cried, and passionately kissed the blanched head. "Oh, my red, red rose ... your lips, at last, at last, Rose of the World!"
Thus was fulfilled in the barren home orchard, Harry English's Eastern dream. And there was not a lichened bough that March day but bore him a wealth of leaf and blossom.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
THE STAR DREAMER THE PRIDE OF JENNICO THE SECRET ORCHARD THE BATH COMEDY INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS
YOUNG APRIL THE LIGHT OF SCARTHEY CONSEQUENCES MARSHFIELD _the_ OBSERVER LA BELLA AND OTHERS
SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF FENCE ENGLISH BOOK-PLATES THE JENNINGHAM LETTERS LE ROMAN DU PRINCE OTHON