Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/155

Rh to the edge of the wood. The meadow was just below them now, and the sleigh in plain sight on the height beyond. Their steps made no sound on the sodden drifts underfoot, and in the silence he thought he heard a catch in her breathing. It was enough to make the brimming moment overﬂow. He stood still before her and bent his head to hers.

“Bessy!” he said, with sudden vehemence.

She did not speak or move, but in the quickened state of his perceptions he became aware that she was silently weeping. The gathering darkness under the trees enveloped them. It absorbed her outline into the shadowy background of the wood, from which her face emerged in a faint spot of pallor; and the same obscurity seemed to envelop his faculties, merging the hard facts of life in a blur of feeling in which the distinctest impression was the sweet sense of her tears.

“Bessy!” he exclaimed again; and as he drew a step nearer he felt her yield to him, and bury her sobs against his arm. [ 139 ]