"
"And to-morrow Amy marries, I lose you both the same day! You are going
straight to Mount Vernon?"
"Straight to Mount Vernon."
"Ah, to think that you will see Virginia so soon! I've been recalling a
great deal about Virginia during these days when you would not come to see
me. Now I've forgotten everything I meant to say!"
They climbed the hill slowly. Two or three times she stopped and pressed her
hand over her heart. She tried to hide the sound of her quivering breath and
glanced up once to see whether he were observing. He was not. With his old
habit of sending his thoughts on into the future, fighting its distant
battles, feeling its far-off pain, he was less conscious of their parting
than of the years during which he might not see her again. It is the woman
who bursts the whole grape of sorrow against the irrepressible palate at
such a moment; to a man like him the same grape distils a vintage of
yearning that will brim the cup of memory many a time beside his lamp in the
final years.
He would have passed the house, supposing they were to go to the familiar
seat in the garden; but a bench had been placed under a forest tree near the
door and she led the way to this.
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