The curtains were half drawn, the day was cloudy, and Rose advanced two or three steps into the room before she discovered another occupant.
That occupant rose as she stopped. She saw a manly fellow with hair cut short and full mustache. He saw a woman a little above the medium height, with hazel eyes, full and proud, a fair, clear-cut face, a slight but perfectly developed form, and the face wore a look which it seemed to him was sad, despite its beauty, as though some thought within made a shadow on the fair young life.
The young man gazed a moment, then raising and opening his arms, in a voice that shook perceptibly, said, "Rose!"
She gazed a moment, then with a joyous cry of "O, Jack!" sprang into the outstretched arms, and for the first time in their lives their lips met.
There were tears in Jack"s eyes; the tears were raining down Rose"s face, and both were shaking as with a burning ague. Browning sank upon a sofa, still clasping the fair girl in his strong arms, and seating her beside him.
"O, Rose," he said, "I have dreamed of this meeting ever since I left you, by sea and land, under the sunshine, in the deep mine"s depths, by day and night. I love you, I do not know when I did not love you; I have come for you, will you be my wife?"
Then Rose said: "You went away without a good-bye or any message. You never wrote. You have been gone more than four years." But with a smile which was enchantment to Jack, she added: "If I could have found any one to marry me, I would have shown you, but no one would, because when I was young I kept such bad company."
Then how they did talk! Jack repeated all the old inaccuracies which lovers have called up since the Stone Age, the burden of which was that the memory of her face had been his light in the darkest mine; the memory of her voice had been the music for which his soul had been listening for years.
And Rose told the enraptured young man how hard her lot had been to conceal a love which she had no right to own, because it had never been asked; how hard it had been for her to simulate contentment and cheerfulness, but after all how it had been her comfort and support, because she had never doubted that he would come back.
Then Jack, between kisses, told his charmer that he had worked every day for years; that he had gathered up quite a many good pounds; that if she would be his wife, if nothing could be done in England, they would bid England good-bye and make their home beyond the sea. And she consented, adding: "If you have to run away again, see that you do not go alone. You were always so wild that from the first you have needed some careful person to look after you."
An hour later, Grace came, unlocked the door, and found the happy pair arm-in-arm walking up and down the room. Going up to them, and looking into their faces, she said:
"Why, Rose, you have been crying; what is wrong, dear?"
"Nothing is wrong," she answered, "nothing is wrong, and I have not been crying; have I, Jack? But, Grace, was it fair to give me no hint, and thus permit Jack to surprise me into giving away something that I ought to have kept him on the rack for a month at least about before conferring?"
Grace smiled and said: "Are you quite satisfied, Jack?"
"Quite," he replied.
"And are you as happy as you deserve to be, Rose?"
"Oh, Grace," said Rose, and then the two young women both cried and embraced each other until Jack gently separated them, and said: "Come, we must find Jim. Jim is my friend. His judgment is perfect, and I must submit this business to him."
"Mr. Sedgwick has gone back to the hotel," said Grace, and a serious look was in her eyes as she spoke. But in a moment she smiled and said: "When I told him where you were and who was with you, he laughed and said: "It is liable to be a case of working after hours. When the young lady succeeds in extricating herself, tell Jack, please, that I have gone out to take in London, and will see him at the hotel when he finds time to call.""
"And who is Mr. Sedgwick?" asked Rose.
"The best and n.o.blest man in all this world," replied Jack.
"Oh, Jack!" said Rose.
"It is true, all the same, my sorceress," said Browning. "I have seen him tested. He has been my close companion for lo! these many months."
"I am jealous of him," said Rose. "But why did he run away? I want to know all your friends."
"I suspect the truth is he left out of consideration for you and myself,"
said Browning. "He knew how I felt, and he hoped I would not be disappointed, and I suspect he thought the sacredness of our joy ought not to be disturbed."
"Very fine, of course," said Grace; "very thoughtful and considerate, but why did he not stop to ask himself if it was quite fair to leave me all alone."
"You are right, Gracie," said Browning, "and this act of his shows an absence of mind on his part that I did not expect."
Then all laughed, but Grace blushed a little while she laughed.
Then Mrs. Hamlin came in. She warmly congratulated the happy pair.
They strolled into the sitting-room, and soon after the mail was brought in. The first things the girls seized upon were the papers from Devonshire, for they were like other people. Men and women live in a place for years, and daily express the belief that the home paper is the worst specimen they ever saw, but let one of them absent himself or herself for a week, and the same newspaper from the old home is the one thing they want above all others. Glancing over the paper, Grace suddenly looked up and said: "Why, they had a wonderfully exciting episode down in ---- on Sunday last." She had come upon the account of the exploit with the bull, and read it aloud.
The names being misspelled, she never suspected the real facts.
"That was a brave man," she said, when she had finished. "It must have been splendid. I wish I could have seen it. How it must have astonished those villagers. I would like to kiss the man who performed that feat."
"Would you?" said Jack laughingly. "I will tell him so when I meet him."
"Please do," said Grace. "He must have been a grand matador from Spain,"
and springing up, she caught a tidy from the furniture, danced around the room with it, holding it in both hands as though bating an angry bull, and suddenly dropping it, made a grab for an imaginary ring and horn, and twisting both wrists quickly, cried out: "Did I not down his highness beautifully?"
"Beautifully," said Browning, "and when I meet the man I will tell him of your vivid imitation."
"And don"t forget to tell him I would like to kiss him," said Grace, laughing.
"Maybe I can fix it so you can tell him yourself, Grace."
"Do you know him, Jack?" asked Rose.
Jack smiled and said, "Perhaps."
"What do you mean, Jack?" asked Grace.
"I know the man, Grace; and so do you," said Jack.
"True?" asked Grace.
"True," said Jack.
"I know him?" asked Grace. "Why, who is there in ---- that would do anything like that?"
"No one that I know of," said Jack. "But you have forgotten a somewhat diffident and reserved young man with whom you were conversing in the parlor an hour ago?"
Grace grew pale, and sank into a seat. "O, Jack, you don"t mean--?"
"Yes," he said, interrupting her, "it was Sedgwick, and it was splendidly done, too. It was, by Jove!"
"Honest?" asked Grace.
"Honest, and I will deliver your message."
Blushing scarlet, Grace sprang up and began to plead.
Browning would promise nothing except that he might possibly put the matter off a little while. "But," he added, "I believe Jim would give more to see your imitation than you would to see the original performance repeated without change of scene."