“In all those ways—­yes.”

“I thank God,” he breathed again.

He raised her face.  He looked deep into her eyes, and the glory of her love grew in them, and her lips trembled as she lifted them ever so little for him to kiss.

“Oh, I was happy—­so happy,” she whispered, putting her hands to his face.  “John, I knew that you loved me, and oh!  I was fighting so hard to keep myself from letting you know how happy it made me.  And here, I was afraid you wouldn’t tell me—­before it happened.  And John—­John——­”

She leaned back from him, and her white hands moved like swift shadows in her hair, and then, suddenly, it billowed about her—­her glorious hair—­covering her from crown to hip; and with her hands she swept and piled the lustrous masses of it over him until his face, and head, and shoulders were buried in the flaming sheen and sweet perfume of it.

He strained her closer.  Through the warm richness of her tresses his lips pressed her lips, and they ceased to breathe.  And up to their ears, pounding through that enveloping shroud of her hair came the tick-tick-tick of the watch in his pocket.

“Joanne,” he whispered.

“Yes, John.”

“You are not afraid of—­death?”

“No, not when you are holding me like this, John.”

He still clasped her hands, and a sweet smile crept over her lips.

“Even now you are splendid,” she said.  “Oh, I would have you that way, my John!”

Again they stood up in the unsteady glow of the lanterns.

“What time is it?” she asked.

He drew out his watch, and as they both looked his blood ran cold.

“Twelve minutes,” she murmured, and there was not a quiver in her voice.  “Let us sit down, John—­you on this box, and I on the floor, at your feet—­like this.”

He seated himself on the box, and Joanne nestled herself at his knees, her hands clasped in his.

“I think, John,” she said softly, “that very, very often we would have visited like this—­you and I—­in the evening.”

A lump choked him, and he could not answer.

“I would very often have come and perched myself at your feet like this.”

“Yes, yes, my beloved.”

“And you would always have told me how beautiful my hair was—­always.  You would not have forgotten that, John—­or have grown tired?”

“No, no—­never!”

His arms were about her.  He was drawing her closer.

“And we would have had beautiful times together, John—­writing, and going adventuring, and—­and——­”

He felt her trembling, throbbing, and her arms tightened about him.

And now, again up through the smother of her hair, came the
tick-tick-tick of his watch.

He felt her fumbling at his watch pocket, and in a moment she was holding the timepiece between them, so that the light of the lantern fell on the face of it.