Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/100

 of these things? They are nothing now. And yet they are with me always.

I walked there to and fro all night. At sunrise I went away ashamed.

What was a bough of lilac to make me a fool, thus?

At daybreak I asked a stone-cutter, as he went by me to his work, who dwelt behind those old crumbling walls. He told me no one. They were the walls of an old monastic garden, into which any one might stray at pleasure. I asked him no more. I felt a strange silence and shyness upon me.

I went home to the little miserable tavern where my people had found lodging, and went up to my garret there, and looked at the lilac bough, and bent my head and kissed it foolishly. I felt as though it were my fate in some way.

I had placed it in water, and kept it in the shade, but already it had withered, and the yellow butterfly was dead.

All that day through I endeavoured to find the woman who had dropped it into my hands, but I had no success. It was a festal day, and the streets were full of people, bright with banners and streamers, crucifixes and images, white-robed singing-boys and gay little children with their heads crowned with spring flowers. But I did not light, amongst all the