"I will give it to him again. With my own hands I will give it to him
once more. O Richard, my lover, my husband! Now I will hasten to see
thee."
With relays at every post-house, she reached London the next night, and,
weary and terrified, drove at once to the small hostelry where Hyde lay.
There was a soldier sitting outside his chamber-door, but the wounded
man was quite alone when Katherine entered. She took in at a glance the
bare, comfortless room, scarcely lit by the sputtering rush-candle, and
the rude bed, and the burning cheeks of the fevered man upon it.
"Katherine!" he cried; and his voice was as weak and as tearful as that
of a troubled child.
"Here come I, my dear one."
"I do not deserve it. I have been so wicked, and you my pure good wife."
"See, then, I have had no temptations, but thou hast lived in the midst
of great ones. Then, how natural and how easy was it for thee to do
wrong!"
"Oh, how you love me, Katherine!"
"God knows."
"And for this wrong you will not forsake me?"
She took from her bosom the St. Nicholas ribbon. "I give it to thee
again. At the first time I loved thee; now, my husband, ten thousand
times more I love thee. As I went through the papers, I found it. So
much it said to me of thy true love! So sweetly for thee it pleaded! All
that it asks for thee, I give. All that thou hast done wrong to me, it
forgives."
And between their clasped hands it lay,--the bit of orange ribbon that
had handselled all their happiness.
"It is the promise of everything I can give thee, my loved one,"
whispered Katherine.
"It is the luck of Richard Hyde. Dearest wife, thou hast given me my
life back again."