"I did this?" wonderingly. "Why, that must have been the day I had that awful dream."
"It was. Hazon came in just after, and we made our plans for the expedition. I remember telling you of it that same afternoon."
"Why, then, if this is so, it must have been with some great purpose," she cried, brightening up, a strange, wistful smile illumining her face. "Oh, how glad I am you have told me this, for now I can see comfort—strength. In some mysterious way it seems as if our two lives were intertwined, that it would ever be in my power in some dim way to watch over yours. My darling, my darling—until this moment I had not the strength to part with you—now I have. Let me do so before it leaves me, for we have been here a very long time. I would have seen you off on board, but that I dare not. I simply lack the strength of will to bear that, Laurence, my dear one. We had better say good-bye here—not in the crowded street. Then I will go—alone."
Both had risen, and were holding each other's hands, were gazing into each other's eyes. Thus they stood for a moment. Nobody was in sight. Lilith lifted her lips, and they moved in a barely audible murmur.
"Good-bye, my ideal!"
One long, close, farewell kiss, and she was gone. And the man, as he flung himself back on the garden seat, with his eyes fixed dreamily on the jutting end of the massive rock wall of Table Mountain towering on high to the cloudless blue, realized at that moment no elation such as one might feel who had found considerable wealth, and was returning full of hard, firm health to enjoy the same. More than ever at that moment did life seem to him all out of joint—more than ever, if possible; for his had been one of those lives which, from the cradle to the grave, never seems to be anything else.