Death the Knight and the Lady/Chapter 18

from the arm-chair, and I stood, I remember, sucking in my underlip and staring at the floor. Then I turned to the wardrobe, and took out my great sealskin cloak. I threw it round me and it reached to my feet. I wished to conceal my clothes, why, I did not exactly know, but it seemed to me that they ought to be hidden from everyone but Geraldine.

Then I opened the bedroom door softly and peeped into the passage. No one—not a sound. I stole down the corridor to the head of the great staircase, and peeped over into the hall, the lamps were not yet lit. Then I came down the staircase so softly that you might have thought me a shadow only for the faint, silvery jingle of the spurs. I entered the corridor, and the heavy silk curtain fell behind me. Then I found myself standing at the right hand door with my hand pressed to my heart. No actor about to enter before his audience could have felt the nervousness I felt. My heart seemed gone mad. Then I dropped my sealskin cloak and my nervousness fell with it. I tossed my hair back, felt the hilt of my sword, and without knocking, I turned the door handle and entered.

The figure of a girl stood at the open window; she was gazing out at the dusk-stricken garden. Then she turned and saw me. I heard her breath caught back, and I saw in her hand a white rose.

Did I cross the room? I must have crossed it, but I have no recollection of doing so. I knew nothing of the world or the things in the world, save a face that was trying to hide itself on my shoulder, and a voice that was whispering "You have come." Yes, one other thing I knew. A beetle passed by out somewhere in the garden, and the dreamy and mournful boom of his wings mixed sadly with my intoxication, seeming like a voice from long ages ago.

Oh, that meeting in the grey autumn dusk, that voice repeating over and over again the words "You have come." When shall I hear those words again? Never. There is no perhaps for me, I know in some strange way that I shall hear those words again—never. And the fault is mine.