I gripped his hand, and something in his eyes told me the truth…. He had come for me because I was lonely and needed him.
And the message of the bells took on a new meaning.
VI
We walked into the brisk, vibrating sunshine of a glorious Christmas morning. He had taken my arm, and was chatting gayly on everything from "cabbages to kings." Sometimes his nostrils dilated, and he would look up as if he were actually drinking in the ozone of the air; and he seemed younger than ever, with a joyousness born of sheer intoxication with life. We walked for a mile, and all the time his mood was as happy and stimulating as the sunshine sparkling in the December air.
Turning down a street, we passed a church from which the worshipers were emerging, and a mother with two sons on the brink of manhood held our attention for a moment. The lads had a gentleness of feature, an unconscious grace that sometimes is the attribute of adolescence, and their mother walked between them, proudly—they were her masterpieces. For some time Norman chatted amiably, but I could see that a pensive shadow was steadily creeping over the brilliancy of his spirits.
"They tell me," he said in subdued tones, breaking suddenly from the topic in hand, "that both my parents hoped for a girl when I was born. And sometimes I have thought that there is a little of the feminine in my nature. I love the pretty things of life, and there are times when I have an unmistakable sense of intuition."
I waited silently, but it was some moments before he resumed.
"Somewhere ahead," he said dreamily, "in months or years to come, I see a vision of a woman in black, coming from church alone, and her head is bowed with grief——" He passed his hand over his brow with a weary, querulous movement, and shadows appeared beneath his eyes. "Where—where are the two sons? Not dead?"
He smiled wistfully and replaced his hand in my arm.
"The picture we saw just now," he said, "is my conception of England—the real England of noble mothers and noble sons. But something tells me that the woman in black is England too, mourning for her sons who will never—come back."