I heard Gabriel collect his papers and put them into his pocket;
still none of us spoke. It seemed time to break the silence. I
lifted my head and looked up at my poet.
There he sat with head thrown back and quivering lips; his eyes,
wide with mingled fear and yearning, were fixed upon Constance,
whose white, uplifted face was as the mirror of his own. It was for
an instant only; the next, they turned to me.
And so the tale was told; we sat there, we three, blenched and
panic-stricken, gazing into each other's eyes.
The time had come. I rose, took their hands, and laid them together
on the table. I would have said something, but no words came; so,
smiling simply into the face of each, I bent and kissed the
intertwining fingers, then left the room. I groped my way into the
garden, and, standing on a flower-bed beneath the window, looked in
upon them. They sat as I had left them, with clasped hands and
mingled gaze. I think it was Constance that moved first, I am not
sure, but they rose suddenly and fell into each other's arms. For an
instant I looked upon them with a strange sense of exultation, as
if, perhaps, I were the Spirit of Love, and not a jealous woman.
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