“Leave the daring to me, sweetheart,” he answered.  “You shall have nothing to do but rest after these horrible days, rest and care for me a little.”

“Oh, I do care!” she exclaimed, with sudden passion.  “That is what makes it all so wonderful.”

“You love me?  Tell me so once more?” he begged.

“Dear, I love you.  You must have known it or you couldn’t have said these things.  And I thought I was going to die without knowing what love was.”

“Never fear that again,” he cried joyfully.  “You shall know what it is every hour of the day.  You shall know what it is to feel yourself surrounded by it, to feel it encompass you on every side.  You shall know what it is to have some one think for you, live for you, make sweet places for your footsteps in life.”

Her eyes shone.  The years had fallen away.  She rose tremblingly to her feet, her arms stole around his neck.

“John, you dear, wonderful lover,” she whispered, “why, it has come already!  I am forgetting everything.  I am happy!”

The clock on Wingate’s mantelpiece struck one.  He drew himself gently away from the marvel of those soft entwining arms, stooped and kissed Josephine’s fingers reverently.

“Dear,” he said, “let me begin to take up my new responsibilities.  We must arrange for your stay here.”

She laughed happily, rose, and with a woman’s instinct stood before the mirror, patting her hair.

“I don’t recognise myself,” she murmured.  “Is this what love brings, John?”

He stood for a moment by her side.

“Love?” he repeated.  “Why, you haven’t begun yet to realise what it means—­what it will bring to you.”

Once more she set her hands upon his shoulders.  Her eyes, which a moment before had looked so longingly into his, drooped for a moment.

“Dear,” she begged, “you won’t ever be sorry, will you, and—­does this sound selfish, I wonder?—­you won’t mind waiting?”

He smiled down at her.

“I shall never be sorry,” he declared firmly.  “I shall always bless this night and the impulse that brought you here.  And as to waiting,” he went on, “well, I have had four years of waiting without any particular hope, even of seeing you again.  I think that with hope I can hold out a little longer.”

He went over to the telephone and spoke for a few moments.  Then he laid down the receiver and returned.

“A boy is bringing up the key of your room at once,” he announced.  “You will be in the south block, a long way off, but the rooms there are comfortable.”

“Thank you, John dear,” she said, smiling.

“Just one thing more,” he continued.  “I want you to remember that this miserable, tangled skein of unhappiness which you have called life is finished and done with.  From to-night you belong to me.  I must see you to-morrow—­if possible at Dredlinton House—­and we can work out some plans then.  But you are to worry about nothing.  Remember that I am here, and I love you.—­Good night!”