Then she was aware that he had come forward and was standing over her. He
bent his head down so close that his lids touched her hair--so close that
his warm breath was on her forehead--and she felt rather than knew him
saying to himself, not to her:
"Good-bye!"
He passed like a tall spirit out of the door, and she heard his footsteps
die away along the path--die slowly away as of one who goes never to return.
XV
A JEST may be the smallest pebble that was ever dropped into the sunny
mid-ocean of the mind; but sooner or later it sinks to a hard bottom, sooner
or later sends it ripples toward the shores where the caves of the fatal
passions yawn and roar for wreckage. It is the Comedy of speech that forever
dwells as Tragedy's fondest sister, sharing with her the same unmarked
domain; for the two are but identical forces of the mind in gentle and in
ungentle action as one atmosphere holds within itself unseparated the zephyr
and the storm.
The following afternoon O'Bannon was ambling back to town--slowly and
awkwardly, he being a poor rider and dreading a horse's back as he would
have avoided its kick. He was returning from the paper mill at Georgetown
whither he had been sent by Mr.
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