Page:The Mystery of Choice - Chambers.djvu/184

172 the big brown-red butterflies, luminous as richest autumn leaves.

Some one closed the door softly. The doctor had gone.

The sunlight poured into the window, etching my shadow on the wall behind. Lying very still there I saw it motionless beside me. The shadow was black.

Somebody said in the next room, "Will he die?"

"Die?" I said aloud.

A bird twittered outside my window.

The door opened again, noiselessly.

"Sweetheart?" I whispered.

"Yes, Jack."

After a moment I said, "When do you go back to school?"

"I? I finished school a year ago."

"Come nearer."

"I am here, Jack."

"Time stopped a year ago."

"A year ago to-day."

The same gray eyes, the same face, paler, perhaps.

"We have journeyed far," I sighed, "always together, but in those days our shadows were white as snow. Am I going to die? There are tears in your eyes."

They fell on my cheek; her arms fell too, closer, closer, around my neck.

"Life has begun," she said.