A sound of distant singing came to him across the hollyhocks and the sunflowers: it was the evening hymn. It was kinder than the bells—it brought him nearer to peace: she had been so fond of it, so proud to raise her baby voice with the rest. Was she singing it to-night? Was she happy? He lost himself in his dream of her; not that she was not always in his thoughts, in work or in leisure, but that when he was at leisure he could live only in his dreams.
Bitterness—or at least active anger and resentment—had long ago died out of him; all that was dead as the dead woman whom he had once loved—buried in her grave. It was always of his little maid that he dreamed.
The sun had set; the west was still glorious behind the cottages, and even the grey downiness of the lightly-veiled sky overhead was warm with the memory of the borrowed flush, but the twilight was gathering, dusky and tender: the great plain took a sorrowful farewell of the day, lingering over it softly: the red harvest moon crept slowly between the sea and the sky.
Vaguely he remembered that it was on just such a night, ten years and more ago, that he had wooed his wife down yonder by the distant harbour. Yet it was less of her that he thought than of his maid—of his dear little maid.
He dreamed of her as he saw her that last time framed in the doorway, with the first of the sunlight upon her and the dew of the morning and the springtime. And even as he dreamed—there she was! There was a little rustle in the cabbages below the garden wall—and there she stood with her golden head just in front of the red moon.
Only it was not quite like his little maid; this little one was taller and thinner, and her cheeks were not so round and had not the sweet flush that he knew, and her eyes were bigger and had a wistful look in them that she had never had cause to wear. It was a vision—but it was like her—oh, very like her as she had looked in her whiteness and her innocence....
He took his pipe from his mouth; it dropped between his fingers on to the bench beside him; and he sat staring at her; but he would not move for fear the sweet figure should vanish, for fear the joyful dream should come to an end and he should be awake again and alone with his loneliness.
But she moved.
She swung her little arms on high as she had been wont to do whenever she was happy; then she ran forward—ran straight towards him across the lawn—ran, with a cry of joy, straight to her old place upon his bosom.
Then he knew that it was no vision, but just his little maid in the flesh, warm and living and loving—his little maid come back to him. He asked no questions; he just held her there—where she had flown—to his heart; he just held her there and was content.