She came up from it, breathless, trembling, yet with a throbbing ecstasy at her heart such as she had never known before.

For the impossible had happened to her.

She realized it now.
She--Olga Ratcliffe, the ordinary, the colourless, the prosaic--was caught in the grip of the Unknown Power, that Immortal Wonder which for lack of a better name men call Romance.

And she knew it, she exulted in it, she stretched out her woman's hands to grasp it, as a babe will seek to grasp the sunshine, possessing and possessed.
In that moment she acknowledged that the bitter struggle through which she had just come had been indeed worth while.

It had exhausted her, terrified her; but it had shown her her heart in such a fashion as to leave no room for doubt or misunderstanding.