“O, Rose,” he said, “I have dreamed of this meeting ever since I left you, by sea and land, under the sunshine, in the deep mine’s depths, by day and night.  I love you, I do not know when I did not love you; I have come for you, will you be my wife?”

Then Rose said:  “You went away without a good-bye or any message.  You never wrote.  You have been gone more than four years.”  But with a smile which was enchantment to Jack, she added:  “If I could have found any one to marry me, I would have shown you, but no one would, because when I was young I kept such bad company.”

Then how they did talk!  Jack repeated all the old inaccuracies which lovers have called up since the Stone Age, the burden of which was that the memory of her face had been his light in the darkest mine; the memory of her voice had been the music for which his soul had been listening for years.

And Rose told the enraptured young man how hard her lot had been to conceal a love which she had no right to own, because it had never been asked; how hard it had been for her to simulate contentment and cheerfulness, but after all how it had been her comfort and support, because she had never doubted that he would come back.

Then Jack, between kisses, told his charmer that he had worked every day for years; that he had gathered up quite a many good pounds; that if she would be his wife, if nothing could be done in England, they would bid England good-bye and make their home beyond the sea.  And she consented, adding:  “If you have to run away again, see that you do not go alone.  You were always so wild that from the first you have needed some careful person to look after you.”

An hour later, Grace came, unlocked the door, and found the happy pair arm-in-arm walking up and down the room.  Going up to them, and looking into their faces, she said: 

“Why, Rose, you have been crying; what is wrong, dear?”

“Nothing is wrong,” she answered, “nothing is wrong, and I have not been crying; have I, Jack?  But, Grace, was it fair to give me no hint, and thus permit Jack to surprise me into giving away something that I ought to have kept him on the rack for a month at least about before conferring?”

Grace smiled and said:  “Are you quite satisfied, Jack?”

“Quite,” he replied.

“And are you as happy as you deserve to be, Rose?”

“Oh, Grace,” said Rose, and then the two young women both cried and embraced each other until Jack gently separated them, and said:  “Come, we must find Jim.  Jim is my friend.  His judgment is perfect, and I must submit this business to him.”

“Mr. Sedgwick has gone back to the hotel,” said Grace, and a serious look was in her eyes as she spoke.  But in a moment she smiled and said:  “When I told him where you were and who was with you, he laughed and said:  ’It is liable to be a case of working after hours.  When the young lady succeeds in extricating herself, tell Jack, please, that I have gone out to take in London, and will see him at the hotel when he finds time to call.’”