Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/177

 So he fared till he came within sight of the ness, and saw no figure there on the top of it; yet he straightway fell to running, as though he knew she had been waiting for him a long while; but as he ran he kept his eyes down on the ground, so that he might not see her place empty of her. But when he came to his place he lifted up his eyes, and there to his great joy saw her coming up the slope of the ness; and when she saw him she uttered a great cry, and spread out her arms and reached out to him. But as for him, he might make neither word nor sound a great while, but stood looking on her. Then he said: Is it well with thee? O yea, yea, she said, and over-well as now. Art thou wedded? said he. Yea, she said, unto thee. O would that we were, would that we were! said Osberne. O! she said, be not sad this morning, or wish for aught so that it grieve thee. Bethink thee how dear this moment is now at last, when our eyes behold each other. Hast thou come here often to look for me? said he. She said: It was the fourteenth of May was a year that we parted; now is this the eighth day of October. That makes five hundred and eleven days: not oftener than that have I come here to look for thee.

So piteous-kind she looked as she spake, that his bosom heaved and his face changed, and he wept. She said: I wish I had not said that to make thee weep for me, my dear. He spake as his face cleared: Nay, my dear, it was not all for thee, but for me also; and it was not all for grief, but