There was silence.  Such a tremendous upheaval of emotions and feelings seemed surging within me I could not speak.  My voice seemed dried dead in my throat.  No words came before my mind that I could use.

Dawn was creeping slowly into the room.  The hideous black night was over.  Pale light, very soft and grey, but overpowering, was stealing in, mingling with the electric gold glare it was so soon to kill.  It seemed to me like that mysterious, impalpable spirit we call love that is overpowering, dominant over everything, before which the false glare of the fires of sense pale into nothingness.

“Trevor,” she said at last, breaking the silence of the pale, misty room, “are you glad I decided as I did?  You must do just what you like; I only felt I could not do anything against you.”

I turned and drew her wholly into my arms, and at that warm, living contact my voice came back to me.

“You are my life, my soul, and you ask if I am glad you’ve come back to me?  There is nothing in the world for me really but you.  Everything else is dust and ashes, that can be swept away by the lightest transient wind.  You are the very life in my veins, and you must be mine always, as you have been from the very first.”

I pressed my lips down on hers with all the force of that fury of triumph which rose within me.  I did not want her answer.  I merely wanted to force my words between her lips, to drive them home to her heart.  She was my regained possession, and the joy of it was like madness.  She put her arms round my neck and lay quite still and passive, close pressed against my heart, and our souls seemed to meet and hold communion with each other and there was no need of any more words.

PART FOUR

THE CRIMSON NIGHT

CHAPTER VIII

LOSS

We had left town and come down to the country.  Viola had not seemed quite so well in the last three months since the night of our reconciliation, and even here in the country she did not seem to regain her colour and her usual spirits.

She declared, however, there was nothing the matter with her, and we had been intensely happy.

One morning when we came down to our rather late breakfast I found a long, thin, curiously addressed letter lying by my plate.

Viola took it up laughingly, and then I saw her suddenly turn pale, and she laid it back on the table as if the touch of it hurt her.

“Oh, Trevor, that is a letter from Suzee!  I am sure it is!  Why should it come now, just when we are so happy?”

I looked at her in surprise, and took up the letter to cut it open.

“What makes you think it comes from her?” I asked; “it is not at all likely.”

“I know it does,” she said simply; “I feel it.”

I laughed and opened the letter, not in the least believing she would be right.  The first line, however, my eye fell upon shewed me it was from Suzee.  The queer, stiff, upright characters suggested Chinese writing, and the first words could be hers alone: