So, thinking to please her, I drew
back into the room. I was glad I had done so when, from the dark corner
where I stood, I saw her steal up the marble steps and stand timidly
looking in at the door. Then, after a long pause, came a whisper as
faint and sweet as the music of a distant AEolian harp:

"Are you there? May I come in? Answer me! I am lonely and in fear!" For answer I emerged from my dim corner so swiftly that she was startled. I could hear from the quivering intake of her breath that she was
striving--happily with success--to suppress a shriek. "Come in," I said quietly. "I was waiting for you, for I felt that you
would come. I only came in from the terrace when I saw you coming, lest
you might fear that anyone might see us. That is not possible, but I
thought you wished that I should be careful." "I did--I do," she answered in a low, sweet voice, but very firmly. "But
never avoid precaution. There is nothing that may not happen here. There may be eyes where we least expect--or suspect them." As she spoke
the last words solemnly and in a low whisper, she was entering the room. I closed the glass door and bolted it, rolled back the steel grille, and
pulled the heavy curtain. Then, when I had lit a candle, I went over and
put a light to the fire. In a few seconds the dry wood had caught, and
the flames were beginning to rise and crackle. She had not objected to
my closing the window and drawing the curtain; neither did she make any
comment on my lighting the fire. She simply acquiesced in it, as though
it was now a matter of course. When I made the pile of cushions before
it as on the occasion of her last visit, she sank down on them, and held
out her white, trembling hands to the warmth. She was different to-night from what she had been on either of the two
former visits. From her present bearing I arrived at some gauge of her
self-concern, her self-respect. Now that she was dry, and not
overmastered by wet and cold, a sweet and gracious dignity seemed to
shine from her, enwrapping her, as it were, with a luminous veil. It was
not that she was by this made or shown as cold or distant, or in any way
harsh or forbidding. On the contrary, protected by this dignity, she
seemed much more sweet and genial than before. It was as though she felt
that she could afford to stoop now that her loftiness was realized--that
her position was recognized and secure. If her inherent dignity made an
impenetrable nimbus round her, this was against others; she herself was
not bound by it, or to be bound. So marked was this, so entirely and
sweetly womanly did she appear, that I caught myself wondering in flashes
of thought, which came as sharp periods of doubting judgment between
spells of unconscious fascination, how I had ever come to think she was
aught but perfect woman. As she rested, half sitting and half lying on
the pile of cushions, she was all grace, and beauty, and charm, and
sweetness--the veritable perfect woman of the dreams of a man, be he
young or old. To have such a woman sit by his hearth and hold her holy
of holies in his heart might well be a rapture to any man. Even an hour
of such entrancing joy might be well won by a lifetime of pain, by the
balance of a long life sacrificed, by the extinction of life itself. Quick behind the record of such thoughts came the answer to the doubt
they challenged: if it should turn out that she was not living at all,
but one of the doomed and pitiful Un-Dead, then so much more on account
of her very sweetness and beauty would be the winning of her back to Life
and Heaven--even were it that she might find happiness in the heart and
in the arms of another man. Once, when I leaned over the hearth to put fresh logs on the fire, my
face was so close to hers that I felt her breath on my cheek. It
thrilled me to feel even the suggestion of that ineffable contact. Her
breath was sweet--sweet as the breath of a calf, sweet as the whiff of a
summer breeze across beds of mignonette. How could anyone believe for a
moment that such sweet breath could come from the lips of the dead--the
dead _in esse_ or _in posse_--that corruption could send forth fragrance
so sweet and pure? It was with satisfied happiness that, as I looked at
her from my stool, I saw the dancing of the flames from the beech-logs
reflected in her glorious black eyes, and the stars that were hidden in
them shine out with new colours and new lustre as they gleamed, rising
and falling like hopes and fears. As the light leaped, so did smiles of
quiet happiness flit over her beautiful face, the merriment of the joyous
flames being reflected in ever-changing dimples. At first I was a little disconcerted whenever my eyes took note of her
shroud, and there came a momentary regret that the weather had not been
again bad, so that there might have been compulsion for her putting on
another garment--anything lacking the loathsomeness of that pitiful
wrapping. Little by little, however, this feeling disappeared, and I
found no matter for even dissatisfaction in her wrapping. Indeed, my
thoughts found inward voice before the subject was dismissed from my
mind:

"One becomes accustomed to anything--even a shroud!" But the thought was
followed by a submerging wave of pity that she should have had such a
dreadful experience. By-and-by we seemed both to forget everything--I know I did--except that
we were man and woman, and close together. The strangeness of the
situation and the circumstances did not seem of moment--not worth even a
passing thought. We still sat apart and said little, if anything. I
cannot recall a single word that either of us spoke whilst we sat before
the fire, but other language than speech came into play; the eyes told
their own story, as eyes can do, and more eloquently than lips whilst
exercising their function of speech. Question and answer followed each
other in this satisfying language, and with an unspeakable rapture I
began to realize that my affection was returned. Under these
circumstances it was unrealizable that there should be any incongruity in
the whole affair. I was not myself in the mood of questioning. I was
diffident with that diffidence which comes alone from true love, as
though it were a necessary emanation from that delightful and
overwhelming and commanding passion. In her presence there seemed to
surge up within me that which forbade speech. Speech under present
conditions would have seemed to me unnecessary, imperfect, and even
vulgarly overt. She, too, was silent. But now that I am alone, and
memory is alone with me, I am convinced that she also had been happy. No, not that exactly. "Happiness" is not the word to describe either her
feeling or my own. Happiness is more active, a more conscious enjoyment. We had been content. That expresses our condition perfectly; and now
that I can analyze my own feeling, and understand what the word implies,
I am satisfied of its accuracy.