He threw a hand over his eyes, and sprang up.

An instant later the figure of a woman, deeply veiled, stood within the room, beside the table where he had been writing.

There was silence as they faced each other, his back against the door.
"Oh, do you not know me ?" she said at last, and sank into the chair where he had been sitting.
The question was unnecessary, and she knew it was so; but she could not bear the strain of the silence.

She seemed to have risen out of the letter he had been writing; and had he not been writing of her--of what concerned them both?
How mean and small-hearted he had been, to have thought for an instant that she had not the highest courage, though in going she had done the discreeter, safer thing.

But she had come--she had come! All this was in his eyes, though his face was pale and still.