“Of all ephemera,” he said, “she is the very transparent-bodied fly, the secrets of whose own heart she cannot help but reveal.”
So I had to submit, and hold her sweet image in my arms o’ nights, when the wind came in at the door and the stars crackled with cold. But Gogo was right, I had to confess, when once from the deep woods beyond Shole we heard the clanging of bloodhounds, and knew that my enemies were vainly seeking the trail which had no existence. Then I cowered low, and felt a new gush of affection for the resourceful giant who was so wise in the singleness of his passion.
Often by day I would climb up the ladder to the loft where the astrologer’s telescope yet remained, commanding, like a disused cannon, the house and village he had fancied under its dominion, and there spend hours spying hungrily for what tokens of life the bitter season afforded. They were not many or inspiriting; but they served at least to keep me in touch with that world of my fellows that seemed eternally lost to me.
On the Friday I fell at Gogo’s feet.
“Safe or unsafe,” I cried, “take me away! I can stand this loneliness no longer.”
His face was full of a sorrowful ecstasy.
“And it was a garden to me,” he murmured; “blind that I am!”
“I shall die,” I cried terribly, “and you will lay me with the dead clown under the tree.”
“So would you be for ever mine,” he continued, in a sort of dream.
I shrunk from him, and seeing my look, he cast himself down on his face before me.