She passed her hand across her eyes as though to drive it away, and her thoughts came back to the point from which they had started.  The suspense became unbearable when she realised that she did not know in what condition the Wanderer would wake, nor whether, if left to nature, he would wake at all.  She could not endure it any longer.  She touched his sleeve, lightly at first, and then more heavily.  She moved his arm.  It was passive in her hand and lay where she placed it.  Yet she would not believe that she had made him sleep.  She drew back and looked at him.  Then her anxiety overcame her.

“Wake!” she cried, aloud.  “For God’s sake, wake!  I cannot bear it!”

His eyes opened at the sound of her voice, naturally and quietly.  Then they grew wide and deep and fixed themselves in a great wonder of many seconds.  Then Unorna saw no more.

Strong arms lifted her suddenly from her feet and pressed her fiercely and carried her, and she hid her face.  A voice she knew sounded, as she had never heard it sound, nor hoped to hear it.

“Beatrice!” it cried, and nothing more.

In the presence of that strength, in the ringing of that cry, Unorna was helpless.  She had no power of thought left in her, as she felt herself borne along, body and soul, in the rush of a passion more masterful than her own.

Then she was on her feet again, but his arms were round her still, and hers, whether she would or not, were clasped about his neck.  Dreams, truth, faith kept or broken, hell and Heaven itself were swept away, all wrecked together in the tide of love.  And through it all his voice was in her ear.

“Love, love, at last!  From all the years, you have come back—­at last—­at last!”

Broken and almost void of sense the words came then, through the storm of his kisses and the tempest of her tears.  She could no more resist him nor draw herself away than the frail ship, wind-driven through crashing waves, can turn and face the blast; no more than the long dry grass can turn and quench the roaring flame; no more than the drooping willow bough can dam the torrent and force it backwards up the steep mountain side.

In those short, false moments, Unorna knew what happiness could mean.  Torn from herself, lifted high above the misery and the darkness of her real life, it was all true to her.  There was no other Beatrice but herself, no other woman whom he had ever loved.  An enchantment greater than her own was upon her and held her in bonds she could neither bend nor break.

She was sitting in her own chair now and he was kneeling before her, holding her hands and looking up to her.  For him the world held nothing else.  For him her hair was black as night; for him the unlike eyes were dark and fathomless; for him the heavy marble hand was light, responsive, delicate; for him her face was the face of Beatrice, as he had last seen it long ago.  The years had passed, indeed, and he had sought her through many lands, but she had come back to him the same, in the glory of her youth, in the strength of her love, in the divinity of her dark beauty, his always, through it all, his now—­for ever.