Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/154

146 night as this three months ago—only three months, that you and I stood together in that garden—and I asked you to be my wife, and you put your arms about my neck; and, as we stood together your lover came towards us and looked, first on one, then on another, and went away. You never said, 'That is my betrothed husband, whom I have kissed and betrayed, as I will kiss and betray you if I have the chance.' When he rode that steeplechase next morning so madly, so recklessly, that all saw the goal he strove to reach was death, and a quarter of an hour later was carried back to his mother's carriage dead, did you feel no remorse—no sorrow? You gave no sign. You were shocked; but he might have been a common acquaintance, no more; only later, in looking over the poor lad's papers (for I was a friend of his mother's), I came upon a packet of your letters, and, you being my promised wife, I thought no shame of reading one." He pauses, and she droops her head in the moonlight and shivers. Is she cold or shamed? "You know the story," he says, wearily, "and how we parted. I loved you then; I love you now, but differently, and it is all over."

"You love me," she says, in her low, passionate voice, "and I—my God! do I not love you? And yet we are to live apart!—Must it be so, beloved—must it be so?"

"It must be," he says, very gently. "We can never be anything to each other—never any more!" She lifts her head, and the agony in her face shows clear and strong in the moonlight, as they stand looking at each other, she so surpassingly fair, he so lofty of statue and dark of face; it seems sad, unnatural, that they should suffer so. As she turns away he puts out his hand and draws her back. "Silvia," he says hoarsely, and in the September evening he shivers slightly, "I would have gone to the world's end rather than have met you here to-night. What evil fate has brought us together again so soon—so terribly soon? Since we