They
all have their boys if you believe their talk.
"And all the marks at the end are the sweet kisses I give my boy. For
you are my boy now--my own secret one, and I am your loving girl
"Norah."
She was thinking only of him; she wanted no one younger and handsomer;
in her eyes and thoughts he was not old: he was her boy. Those words
had a terrible effect upon him. They entered his blood as if they had
been an injection of some sweetly narcotic drug; thy lanced deep into
his bowels as if they had been a surgeon's knife; they made him like a
half-anesthetized patient who at the same time dreams of paradise and
feels that he is bleeding to death.
"You are my boy ... and I am your loving girl."
He moved from the gate, hurried along the dusty road, and entered
Hadleigh Wood at the first footpath. As he got over the stile he was
saying to himself, "This letter finishes me. I can't go on with it
after this. I'm done for."
Then, as he walked in the cool silence beneath the dark firs, he held
her letter to his lips--kissed the inked crosses that she had set as
marks to represent her kisses--counted and kissed them and counted
them until his hot tears blinded him.
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