“Yes, and I ran across the mountains just to try and catch a sight of you before I start, for the chances are——” He stopped, and his lips twitched.
“Yes?” she asked.
“That we shall never see one another again.”
“Oh, Mr. Ulick! Oh, Mr. Ulick!” She broke down, her thoughts filled with the terror of separation, and tears ran from her eyes. “Don’t say that. Don’t.”
“Yes. There is nothing half so sweet in life as love’s young dream, and it has been very sweet. Mary, although I’ve never said one word to you that I might not have addressed to your mother, I’m sure you have guessed. Now I came here to tell you the truth; I felt that before I went away, I must speak. I love you, Mary, and I know my own mind. I shall never forget you to my dying day. Yet we can never be anything to one another.”
Mary gazed at his face—white in the moonlight—and made a sudden shivering gesture, pierced with a sense of something tragic and irreparable. She moaned, “Oh, I wish I was dead, that I do.”
“Oh, no, don’t say that. You will have many happy years before you. Why, you are only sixteen. You will soon forget me, and it will be better for you.”
“If you can remember, so can I,” she answered proudly.
“It is hard lines, Mary. I wish I was just a labouring boy for your sake; but you know that unequal matches bring no luck. There is a barrier between us, like this pane of glass.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she murmured.