Thus they wandered on. Half unconsciously their steps turned towards a favourite spot, where even on the hottest of days shade lay, in the coolness reflected by a rock-face never turned to the sun, ever shadowed by an overhanging growth. Birds piped in the brake with varying and fantastic note, while now and again the still air was rent by the lusty shouting of cock-koorhaans, rising fussily near and far, disturbed by real or imaginary cause of alarm. It was an ideal place, this sheltered nook, for such meetings as these.
Hour followed upon hour, but they heeded it not at all, as they sat and talked; and the glance of each seemed unable to leave the other, and the pressure of interlocked fingers tightened. This would be their first parting since they had first met, and it was difficult to determine upon which of the two it fell the hardest Wyvern was a man of deep and strong feeling, in no wise dulled by the fact that he could no longer exactly be called young, and the impending parting had been with him as an all-pervading heart pain to an extent which well-nigh astonished himself—while as for the girl, her passionate adoration of him was as her whole being. It is safe to say that he could have done with her what he chose; and realising this, and how he stood as a tower of strength to her, not as a source of weakness, in his firm unbending principle, the very fact fed and fostered that adoration.
It was here that their real farewell was made, here alone, unseen save by the bright birds that flitted joyously and piped melodiously in the shaded solitude.
“Oh, my own, my own,” whispered Lalanté, her beautiful form shaken by sobs she was powerless to repress. “My adored love, you will come back to me, even if you meet with nothing but ill-fortune—worse even than you have met with up till now. You will come back to me. Promise.”
He could only bend his head in reply. He dared not trust himself to speak.
“Haven’t those two come in yet?” said Le Sage shortly, sitting up in his chair. “Magtig! Warren, I must have been asleep.”
“Well, you were, but why not?” answered Warren easily. “Oh, never mind about them: you were young once yourself, Le Sage.”
The latter looked grim.
“Wyvern’s not so damned young,” he said. “That makes it all the worse, because it shows he’ll never do any good.”