“Was that it?”
“Wait! It is always on the tip of my tongue—yet it will not come.”
“The basil-flower, perchance?”
“No. But let that serve. Was it not a strange dream of ours?”
“Not strange that I should come to you in dreams. It had been my practice, had you known. Shall I come again to-night? Sweetheart, do you call the basil by the name I told you?”
“Yes, Bonbec.”
“A tiny whisper, faith! I’ll whisper back. Isabel, we’ll make the pretty darling flower between us yet.”
So they lingered out their parting, postponing and always postponing the dread moment that was to separate them—to what issue? By ways of bliss and pain they had reached this supreme crisis, whence, if they would, the blind ecstatic plunge. Now, aware in truth that he must delay his going no longer, the man closed fast his arms about their enamoured burden, and spoke his last words very low and impassioned:
“Isabel—before I go—there is a thing to say. It is as a woman—do you realise it—that you lie here?”
“I would be anything, so to lie here for ever.”