or three steps into the room before she discovered another occupant.
That occupant rose as she stopped. She saw a manly fellow with hair cut
short and full mustache. He saw a woman a little above the medium height,
with hazel eyes, full and proud, a fair, clear-cut face, a slight but
perfectly developed form, and the face wore a look which it seemed to him
was sad, despite its beauty, as though some thought within made a shadow
on the fair young life.

The young man gazed a moment, then raising and opening his arms, in a
voice that shook perceptibly, said, "Rose!"

She gazed a moment, then with a joyous cry of "O, Jack!" sprang into the
outstretched arms, and for the first time in their lives their lips met.

There were tears in Jack's eyes; the tears were raining down Rose's face,
and both were shaking as with a burning ague. Browning sank upon a sofa,
still clasping the fair girl in his strong arms, and seating her beside
him.

"O, Rose," he said, "I have dreamed of this meeting ever since I left
you, by sea and land, under the sunshine, in the deep mine's depths, by
day and night. I love you, I do not know when I did not love you; I have
come for you, will you be my wife?"

Then Rose said: "You went away without a good-bye or any message. You
never wrote. You have been gone more than four years." But with a smile
which was enchantment to Jack, she added: "If I could have found any one
to marry me, I would have shown you, but no one would, because when I was
young I kept such bad company."