"
On and on he talked in his excitement, absorbed and planning, leading
her from one point of view on the plateau to another. Her eyes followed
his pointing hands from crest to crest of the mountains their neighbours,
till the valleys were full of creeping shadows. Even when the shades
filmed his eager hand he held it out to point here and there as though
the whole landscape of the mountains was printed in immortal daylight on
his mind.
"I can't see," she said. "It's so dark down there. I can't see it," as
he pointed to the spot where the Brussels railway once ran.
"Well, it's there," he said, staring at the spot with eyes that knew.
The blue night deepened in the sky; from east, west, north, south,
sprang the stars.
"Fanny, look! There's a light in my house!"
Fathoms of shade piled over the village and in the heart of it a light
had appeared. "Marie has lit the lamp on the steps. I mustn't be too
late for her--I must soon go down."
"What, you walk? Is there a footpath down?"
"I shall go down this mountain path below. It's a path I know, shooting
hares. Soon I shall be back again. Brussels one week; then Paris; then
here again. I'll see what builders can be spared from the Paris
factories. They can walk out here from Charleville. Ten miles, that's
nothing! Then we'll get the stone cut ready in the quarries.
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