"You will always be, because I can not learn to forget. But for you it
would be easier and better to forget. You will be happier--" And then
he heard the door open, and she stood before him. The words that he
had meant to write rushed to his lips, but no further. Moved by a
common impulse, they advanced to meet each other, and the next moment
she was in his arms. Neither spoke. It seemed as though, once face to
face, there could be no doubts, no misunderstandings between them.
Their love was wordless, but it had spoken in a silence more eloquent,
more complete than words could ever have been.
"I could not come before," she said, after a little. "I could not
leave her. She was only at peace when I held her hand. She was very
happy at the last--now it is all over."
He held her closer to him, and she clung to him, not sadly or wearily,
but like a strong woman who had fought and won the thing she fought
for.
"It was Fate after all," he said, under his breath. "She meant us for
each other."
She looked up at him. Though suffering, physical and mental, had drawn
its ineffaceable lines upon her face, it had also added to her beauty
the charm of strength and experience.
"I knew long ago that it was Fate," she answered. "Do you remember
that first evening? You told me that people do not drift aimlessly
into each other's lives. Even then, against my will, I felt that it
was true. Afterward I was sure.
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