Clarence threw himself down at the foot of a pine tree to sit and await events.

He took out his watch and looked at the time.

“It is one o’clock,” he said to himself.  “At two sharp the trail will move, or ought to do so.  Perhaps Neville might give us half an hour’s grace, though.  At any rate, I will wait here three-quarters of an hour, and if in that time I hear nothing from Rothsay or Cora, I shall go down the mountain to explain the situation to Neville.”

So saying, Mr. Clarence took out his pipe, filled and lighted it, and smoked.

Corona, like a somnambulist or a blind woman, went slowly toward the log cabin, holding out her hands before her.  She soon reached it, leaned for a moment against the log wall to recover her breath and her courage, and then knocked.

The door was instantly opened, and Regulas Rothsay stood on the threshold, still clothed in his hunter’s suit of buckskin, but without the fur cap—­the same Rule, unchanged except in habiliments and in the length of his untrimmed, tawny hair and beard.

In the instant of meeting she raised her eyes to his, and read in them the undying love of his heart.

With a cry of rapture, of infinite relief and infinite content, she sank upon his doorstep, clasped his knees, and laid her beautiful head down prone on his feet.  Only for a second.

He instantly raised her in his arms, pressed her to his heart, kissed her, and kissed her again and again, bore her into the cabin, placed her in the only chair, and knelt down beside her.

She turned and threw her arms around his neck, and dropped her head upon his bosom.

And not a word was spoken between them.  The emotions of both were too great for utterance, too great almost for endurance.

They were bathed in a flood of light from the noonday sun pouring its rays through the open door and windows of the cabin.  It was the apotheosis of love.

Rule was the first to speak.

“You are welcome, oh, welcome, as life to the dead, my love!  But I do not understand my blessedness—­I do not,” he said, dropping his head on her shoulders, while she still lay on his bosom, in a dream, a trance of perfect contentment.

“Oh, Rule, my husband, my lord, my king!  I have come to you, unconsciously led by the Divine Providence!  But I have come to you, to stay forever, if you will have me!  I have come, never, never, never to leave you, unless you send me away!” she said.

“I send you away, dear?  I send away my restored life from me?  Ah, you know, you know how impossible that would be!  But if I should try to tell you, dear, all that I feel at this moment, I should fail, and talk folly, for no human words can utter this, dear!  But I am amazed—­amazed to see you here with me, as the dead to the material world might be, on awaking amid the splendors of Paradise!”

“You wish to know how I came?”