The taxicab stopped; a porter ran forward to take her bag, and while she thrust the money into the driver’s hand, she heard her voice coolly and calmly giving directions.

“I must catch the next train to Washington.”

“Have you got your ticket, Miss?”

She stared back at him blankly.  Though she saw his lips moving, it was impossible for her to distinguish the words because she was still hearing in a muffled undercurrent the roar of the streets.

“Have you got your ticket?” They were passing through the station now, and he explained hurriedly:  “You can’t go through the gate without a ticket.”

She drew out her purse, and panic seized her afresh while she waited before the window behind a bald-headed man who counted his change twice before he would move aside, and let her step into his place.  Then, when the ticket was given to her, she turned and ran after the porter through the gate and down the steps to the platform.  As she ran, her eyes wavered to the long platform, and the little groups gathered beside the waiting train, which seemed to shake like a moving black and white picture.

“Suppose I miss him, after all!  Suppose I never see him again!” she thought, and all that was young in her, all that was vital and alive, strained forward as her feet touched the platform.  Except for several coloured porters and a woman holding a child by the hand, the place was deserted.  Then a man stepped quickly out of one of the last coaches, and by his bigness and the red of his hair, she knew that it was O’Hara.  At the first sight of him the panic died suddenly in her heart, and the old peace, the old sense of security and protection swept over her.  Her face, which had been lowered, was lifted like a flower that revives, and her feet, which had stumbled, became the swift, flying feet of a girl.  It was as if both her spirit and her body sprang toward him.

At the sound of his name, he turned and stood motionless, as if hardly believing his vision.

“I came back because I couldn’t help it,” she said.

But he was always hard to convince, and he waited now, still transfixed, still incredulous.

“I came back because I wanted you more than anything else,” she added.

“You came back to me?” he asked, slowly, as if doubting her.

“I came back to you.  I wanted you,” she repeated, and her voice did not quaver, her eyes did not drop from his questioning gaze.  It was all so simple at last; it was all as natural as the joyous beating of her heart.

“And you’ll marry me now—­to-night?”

It was the ultimate test, she knew, the test not only of her love for O’Hara, but of her strength, her firmness, her courage, and of her belief in life.  The choice was hers that comes to all men and women sooner or later—­the choice between action and inaction, between endeavour and relinquishment, between affirmation and denial, between adventure and deliberation, between youth and age.  One thought only made her hesitate, and she almost whispered the words: