And he remembered with a miserable smile how she had delighted him
with her account of her adventure to her mother, and described them as
fleeing down the Avenue with their treasure, pursued by a squadron of
mounted policemen.
This and a hundred other of the foolish, happy fancies they had shared
in common came back to him, and he remembered how she had stopped one
cold afternoon just outside of this favorite spot, beside an open iron
grating sunk in the path, into which the rain had washed the autumn
leaves, and pretended it was a steam radiator, and held her slim
gloved hands out over it as if to warm them.
How absurdly happy she used to make him, and how light-hearted she had
been! He determined suddenly and sentimentally to go to that secret
place now, and bury the engagement ring she had handed back to him
under that bush as he had buried his hopes of happiness, and he
pictured how some day when he was dead she would read of this in his
will, and go and dig up the ring, and remember and forgive him. He
struck off from the walk across the turf straight toward this dell,
taking the ring from his waistcoat pocket and clinching it in his
hand. He was walking quickly with rapt interest in this idea of
abnegation when he noticed, unconsciously at first and then with a
start, the familiar outlines and colors of her brougham drawn up in
the drive not twenty yards from their old meeting-place.
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