Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/388

380 "Is that you, Nell?" he asks, and mechanically I put my hand in his, and look dully into his face.

"You are ill," he exclaims; "you must let me take you home at once?"

"I am going. He is gone," I say, looking up into my companion's face with a chilly smile, "and I think my heart is broken."

"He will come back says George, soothingly; "it is only for a little while. "Can't you live these few days without him, Nell?"

"He will never come back," I say, standing still. "Do you not hear the fairies and spirits whispering it—'He will never return to you, never, never? That is what they are saying quite plainly; and Ioh, God!" I cry, standing still. "He will never be my Paul any more, never any more. I can see it—the dream!" I shudder from head to foot, and stagger. George holds me for a moment, then I shake the blindness from my eyes, the lassitude from my limbs, and break away from him. "Hark!" I cry, holding up my hand; "surely that was his step—listen!" But no sound comes to us, and though I run to the bend of the neadow and look around, there is no one to be seen, all is blank and bare and chill.

"It is too cold for you here," says George; come away home, Nell!" And he puts my hand under his arm and takes me away.

"It sounded just like his step," I say over and over again; "could he have come back?"

"George," I say, looking up into his worn, kind face," do you think I am mad? I am not—only I feel strange, as though I had had a bad blow. Do you think a person could die in ten days, or that any one who hated him could do him a mischief in that time?"

"Do not think of such things," says the young man; "your nerves are unstrung, dear. You will feel differently to-morrow."