“It is like it was before,” she said.

Yet it was not in the least as it was before. Nevertheless his heart was perfectly in accord with her. They thought one thought.

“I knew I should come back,” he said at length.

She quivered.

“Did you always love me?” she asked.

The directness of the question overcame him, submerged him for a moment. The darkness travelled massively along.

“I had to come back to you,” he said, as if hypnotized. “You were always at the back of everything.”

She was silent with triumph, like fate.

“I loved you,”