She regretted her indiscretion, and feared she had raised the moral question; but the taunt that it was he and not she that was acting had sunk into his heart, and the truth of it overcame him.  It was he who had been acting.  He had pretended an anger which he did not feel, and it was quite true that, whatever she did, he could not really feel anger against her.  She was shrined in his heart, the dream of his whole life.  He could feel anger against himself, but not against her.  She was right.  He must forgive her, for how could he live without her?  Into what dissimulation he had been foolishly ensnared!  In these convictions which broke like rockets in his heart and brain, spreading a strange illumination in much darkness, he saw her beauty and sex idealised, and in the vision were the eyes and pallor of the dead wife, and all the yearning and aspiration of his own life seemed reflected back in this fair, oval face, lit with luminous, eager eyes, and in the tangle of gold hair fallen about her ears, and thrown back hastily with long fingers; and the wonder of her sex in the world seemed to shed a light on distant horizons, and he understood the strangeness of the common event of father and daughter standing face to face, divided, or seemingly divided, by the mystery of the passion of which all things are made.  His own sins were remembered.  They fell like soft fire breaking in a dark sky, and his last sensation in the whirl of complex, diffused and passing sensations was the thrill of terror at the little while remaining to him wherein he might love her.  A few years at most!  His eyes told her what was happening in his heart, and with that beautiful movement of rapture so natural to her, she threw herself into his arms.

“I knew, father, dear, that you’d forgive me in the end.  It was impossible to think of two like us living and dying in alienation.  I should have killed myself, and you, dear, you would have died of grief.  But I dreaded this first meeting.  I had thought of it too much, and, as I told you, I had acted it so often.”

“Have I been so severe with you, Evelyn, that you should dread me?”

“No, darling, but, of course, I’ve behaved—­there’s no use talking about it any more.  But you could never have been really in doubt that a lover could ever change my love for you.  Owen—­I mustn’t speak about him, only I wish you to understand that I’ve never ceased to think of you.  I’ve never been really happy, and I’m sure you’ve been miserable about me often enough; but now we may be happy.  ’Winter storms wane in the winsome May.’  You know the Lied in the first act of the ‘Valkyrie’?  And now that we’re friends, I suppose you’ll come and hear me.  Tell me about your choir.”  She paused a moment, and then said, “My first thought was for you on landing in England.  There was a train waiting at Victoria, but we’d had a bad crossing, and I felt so ill that I couldn’t go.  Next day I was nervous.  I had not the courage, and he proposed that I should wait till I had sung Margaret.  So much depended on the success of my first appearance.  He was afraid that if I had had a scene with you I might break down.”