“Can—can you—tell me why you think you ought not to go?” he whispered, finally, with a great effort.
“No; not now. But I know you would think I am right in wanting to stay,” she cried, impulsively. “I know you would, if you knew about it—but I can't, I can't. I must go in the morning.”
“I should always think you right,” he answered in an unsteady tone, “Always!” He went over to the bench, fumbled about for his hat, and picked it up.
“Come,” he said, gently, “I am going now.”
She stood quite motionless for a full minute or longer; then, without a word, she moved toward the house. He went to her with hands extended to find her, and his fingers touched her sleeve. Then together and silently they found the garden-path; and followed its dim length. In the orchard he touched her sleeve again and led the way.
As they came out behind the house she detained him. Stopping short, she shook his hand from her arm. She spoke in a single breath, as if it were all one word:
“Will you tell me why you go? It is not late. Why do you wish to leave me, when I shall not see you again?”
“The Lord be good to me!” he broke out, all his long-pent passion of dreams rushing to his lips, now that the barrier fell. “Don't you see it is because I can't bear to let you go? I hoped to get away without saying it. I want to be alone. I want to be with myself and try to realize. I didn't want to make a babbling idiot of myself—but I am! It is because I don't want another second of your sweetness to leave an added pain when you've gone. It is because I don't want to hear your voice again, to have it haunt me in the loneliness you will leave—but it's useless, useless! I shall hear it always, just as I shall always see your face, just as I have heard your voice and seen your face these seven years—ever since I first saw you, a child at Winter Harbor. I forgot for a while; I thought it was a girl I had made up out of my own heart, but it was you—you always! The impression I thought nothing of at the time, just the merest touch on my heart, light as it was, grew and grew deeper until it was there forever. You've known me twenty-four hours, and I understand what you think of me for speaking to you like this. If I had known you for years and had waited and had the right to speak and keep your respect, what have I to offer you? I, couldn't even take care of you if you went mad as I and listened. I've no excuse for this raving. Yes, I have!”
He saw her in another second of lightning, a sudden, bright one. Her back was turned to him; she had taken a few startled steps from him.
“Ah,” he cried, “you are glad enough, now, to see me go! I knew it. I wanted to spare myself that. I tried not to be a hysterical fool in your eyes.” He turned aside and his head fell on his breast. “God help me,” he said, “what will this place be to me now?”