He would see Isabel again!

From a distant starry name, withdrawn into the abysses of heaven, she would turn again to woman and a wonderful nearness.

The thought of being once again in a little room together enveloped him in a cloud of sweetness, as though the train were passing through hidden orchards.

Isabel!  Isabel! don’t you hear love’s wings beating towards you across the night?  Have you not just awakened suddenly from your first sleep in the rosebush where you lie, and said:  “Surely out there across the silent woods and meadows, where the night swallows London like a camp-fire, a train, a moving street of lighted windows, is speeding through the darkness and the dew, and in one of those little travelling rooms sits Theophil with his eyes fixed on me”?

Was it Jenny’s name that Theophil was thus taking to Isabel?

No, not Jenny’s name.  Never Jenny’s name!

He was going to look on Isabel again—­that was all.  Perhaps he would die with the mere joy of seeing her again—­and then he would not need to think of the future.  Yes! the deeps of his soul had wanted her as much as that.

It was about half-past six as he reached London; and though it was impossible to call on her for some hours yet, Theophil drove straight to Isabel’s little square, shuttered and still in the early-risen London morning.  His eyes chose the second storey for hers, and picked out two dainty windows as her rooms.  He half expected to see the blind suddenly drawn aside and her face, a sleepy flower, bloom through the curtains.

He lingered awhile, loving each individual brick of the house with his eyes, and then, kissing his hands to the sleeping windows, he rejoined his cab, which he had left at the street corner, shy of awaking the hushed square with its clatter.

He gave Isabel till ten o’clock, which was perhaps hardly enough for a young London lady’s toilette and breakfast, and then called.  A pleasant housemaid answered the bell, and told him that Miss Strange was away, and was not expected till to-morrow.

Here was a surprise.  He had never even thought of that possibility.

Begging leave to write Miss Strange a note, he presently found himself in Isabel’s room.  It was the same his eyes had blessed from the street.

So this was Isabel’s room!  So evidently hers, her very self!

Isabel pictures, Isabel wall-paper, Isabel chairs, Isabel cushions, Isabel desk, Isabel books, Isabel bibelots, Isabel litter,—­all Isabel.

And there hung an arras portiere over a doorway to the right of the fireplace.  That was her bedroom!  Dare he peep in?  That was her little bed.  Would the housemaid catch him if he slipped in and left a kiss on her pillow?  By the mirror was a grotesque little china monster with his mouth full of hat-pins.  He stole one for a memory.  Over a chair lay a little dressing-jacket.  He took it up and kissed it.