During those brief minutes while the sun fell lower, she re-enacted all the joys and bewilderments which had been their childhood. Now they were playing in the garden at Topbury. Now riding out to the Happy Cottage on the tandem trike. Once it was a flowered meadow; she was trying to whistle. His startled question of long ago went unspoken. Only her tearful protest gave the clue to her wandering, “I never heard it, Peter—truly—never. I made it up out of my own head.”
For one thing which she said he had no picture, “Not on my lips. They’re for the man I marry.”
He buried his face. It was intolerable. “My God, I can’t bear it.” Love and marriage—she spoke of them; she would never know them.
Lying there so stilly, while death crept through her body, she seemed uncannily sensitive to all that happened in his mind. She knew that something she had said had hurt him.
Her delirium went from her. “Softy me, Peter, like you used to; I shan’t be afraid then.”
He leant his face against her hair, his cheek touching hers. She lifted her hand and stroked him comfortingly.
Was she wandering? He couldn’t tell. Her eyes were wide, gazing into a great distance. “In heaven they are all—all serious.” Feeling him touch her, she was filled with a wistful regret. “Beautiful warm flesh and blood.”
She tried to turn her head. He raised himself over her.
449
It seemed that her sight had returned. He forced himself to smile lest she should take fright at his crying.