“I know what I deserve at your hands,” Warren said.  “Nobody—­ nobody—­not old George, not anyone—­can think of me with the contempt and the detestation with which I think of myself!  It has changed me.  I will never—­I can never, hold up my head again.  But, Rachael, you loved me once, and I made you happy—­you’ve not forgotten that!  Give me another chance.  Let me show you how I love you, how bitterly sorry I am that I ever caused you one moment of pain!  Don’t leave me alone.  Don’t let me feel that between you and me, as the years go by, there is going to be a widening gulf.  You don’t know what the loneliness means to me!  You don’t know how I miss my wife every time I sit down to dinner, every time I climb into the car.  I think of the years to come—­of what they might have been, of what they will be without you!  And I can’t bear it.  Why, to go down with you and the boys to Clark’s Hills, to tell you about my work, to take you to dinner again—­my God! it seems to me like Heaven now, and I look back a few years, when it was all mine, and wonder if I have been sane, wonder if too much work, and all the other responsibilities, of the boys, and Mother’s death, and the estate, and poor little Charlie, whether I really wasn’t a little twisted mentally!”

Rachael tightened her arms about his neck, pressed her wet face to his.

“Sweetheart,” said her wonderful voice, a mere tired essence of a voice now, “if there is anything to forgive, I am so glad to forgive it!  You are mine, and I am yours.  Please God we will never be parted again!”

And then for a long time there was silence in the room, while husband and wife clung together, and the hurt of the long months was cured, and dissolved, and gone forever.  What Warren felt, Rachael could only know from his tears, and his passionate kisses, and the grip of his arms.  For herself, she felt that she might gladly die, being so held against his heart, feeling through her entire being the rising flood of satisfied love that is life and breath to such a nature as hers.

“I am changed,” said Warren after long moments; “you will see it, for I see it myself.  I can see now what my mother meant, years ago, when she talked to me about myself.  And I am older, Rachael.”

“I am not younger,” Rachael said, smiling.  “And I think I am changed, too.  All the pressure, all the nervous worry of the last few years, seem to be gone.  Washed away, perhaps, by tears—­there have been tears enough!  But somehow—­somehow I am confident, Warren, as I never was before, that happiness is ahead.  Somehow I feel sure that you and I have won to happiness, now, won to sureness.  With each other, and the boys, and books and music, and Home Dunes, the years to come seem all bright.  After all, we are young to have learned how to live!”

And again she drew his face down to hers.

Alice did not come back again, but Mary came in with a cup of smoking soup.  Mrs. Valentine had taken the doctor home, but they would be back later on.  It was after six, and Doctor Gregory said Mrs. Gregory was to drink this, and try to get some sleep.  But first Mary and Rachael must talk over the terrible and wonderful night, and Rachael must creep down the hall, to smile at the nurse, who sat by the heavily sleeping Derry.