Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/427

Rh I cannot let you go; you are my real wife, not that other, my life, my lily!"

"Should I be your lily, then?" I ask, tremblingly. But he who has been so chary of touching me since he has told me his evil tidings, comes closer; would fold his arms about me.

"Back!" I cry, springing aside; "what! would you be the falsest traitor on God's earth?"

"To her!" he cries, with a fierce gesture of loathing.

"To me!"

"To you," he mutters, then an ashen grey replaces the fire of a moment ago; his hands fall to his side; and so, with a hand's breadth between us, we stand looking on each other's wild faces,then—

"Good-bye," I say, in faintest, dreadest whisper; but he does not move or answer, and noiselessly I step past him; but when I have gone a score or so of steps, I pause shuddering, for over the cold desolate fields sweeps the wild and bitter cry of a strong man in his pain: O God! O God!

! The dainty, vely guest has stolen upon us early this year, sweeping away the clinging mists and frosts of the dying winter with her warm, fragrant skirts; touching the sober brown hedges with her fairy wand, until, lo! they have bloomed forth into rarest tapestry of powdery green and downy delicatest spikes of yellow, starring the banks with faint pale primroses and purple-breasted violets, carpeting the woodlands with greyish windflowers