Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 3.pdf/508

 would not turn round to her because I knew she had need of weeping, and had held herself so far and so long for me. It was well, I thought, that she would weep and rest, and then we would toil on again, for I had no inkling of the thing that hung so near. Even now I can see her as she sat there, her lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again the deepening hollow of her cheek.

If we had parted,' she said, 'if I had let you go'

No,' said I. 'Even now I do not repent. I will not repent; I made my choice and I will hold on to the end.'

"And then

"Overhead in the sky flashed something and burst, and all about us I heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas suddenly thrown. They chipped the stones about us, and whirled fragments from the bricks and passed"

He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips.

"At the flash I had turned about

"You know—she stood up

"She stood up, you know, and moved a step towards me

"As though she wanted to reach me

"And she had been shot through the heart."

He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity an Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, and then stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence. When at last I looked at him he was sitting back in