I should have told him to-night. I
stayed at the Cottage until late; after supper he brought me home.
We were very silent. I kept on trying to begin, wondering how to say
it, and he had something, no doubt, in his thoughts. I knew all the
while that it was our last walk across the heath together; perhaps I
wanted to keep it entirely my own. I walked a step or two behind
him, so that my eyes might gaze their fill, and he did not seem to
feel my watching. I wanted to print his form forever in my memory.
We were in sight of the blue gate; we had not spoken for
half-a-mile, and had fallen very far apart. I turned suddenly giddy,
and spread my hands towards him, crying:
"Gabriel! Gabriel!"
He was very kind to me; he turned back and put his arm about my
waist, and we went on more slowly still, as silent as before. But,
all the while, something within me said: "Do you know where you are?
Do you know who holds you? In a few weeks, oh! in one hour, you
would sell your soul for one of these seconds."
Yet I could not feel; it seems to me now that I did not feel.
Within a few yards of the blue door we stood still.
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