“Clarice,” he said, and when she raised her head and saw him, the change that came over her face was so sudden and so great it dazzled him.
“You, Sir Ronald!” she said, and then he knew that she had been dreaming of him.
He went nearer to her, and they strode side by side under the shade of the old tree.
“Clarice,” he repeated, “there are tears in your eyes and on your lashes. You have been alone in this quiet place, weeping. What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” she replied; “but my thoughts were very sad ones, and tears are a luxury at times.”
“They should not be for you, for whom all things bright and beautiful must have been made. Tell me what those sad thoughts were.”
A mound of dead and dying leaves lay at her feet. Every vigorous breath of wind brought fresh leaves down, yellow and red. She pointed to them.
“Every autumn for the last four years I have watched the leaves of this tree fall,” she said, “and the same thoughts have always pursued me.”
“You will not tell me what they are?” he said.
“I cannot. Do you not know how impossible it is to put those thoughts into words that we hardly understand ourselves?”