Then something swelled in her throat forbidding speech.
"I—I must go on," she said at length.
"May I walk with you a little?"
"To the corner. I shall take a 'bus there."
There was but a little way to go, and they stood together, waiting for the 'bus, looking at the darkling river, down which poured the wild west wind.
"Sea-gulls," she said to him, pointing. "Sea-gulls and spring, Edward."
And she mounted quickly up the winding iron stairs, not looking back. But as the 'bus swung round a corner a little distance up the road she could not resist turning round. He was still there at the corner where she had left him, a minute speck on the pavement that glowed in the rose-coloured sunset, so minute, so significant. It seemed to her that all of her essential self, her heart, her power of love, was standing there with him; that he gazed but at an empty wraith of herself who sat on the pounding, swaying 'bus, while she stood by his side as the spring evening darkened and the sea-gulls hovered and wheeled.