“Take me with you,” she repeated passionately, saying it over and over again with her lips upon his arm.
He stooped and kissed her almost roughly, and then put her gently away from him.
“It is the way my mother went,” he said, “and God help me, I am my father's son. I am afraid,—afraid—do you know what that means?”
“But I am not afraid,” answered the girl steadily.
He shivered and turned away; then he came back and knelt down to kiss her skirt. “No, I can't take you with me,” he went on rapidly, “but if I live to be a man I shall come back—I will come back—and you—”
“And I am waiting,” she replied.
He opened the gate and passed out into the road.
“I will come back, beloved,” he said again, and went on into the darkness.
Leaning over the gate she strained her eyes into the shadows, crying his name out into the night. Her voice broke and she hid her face in her arm; then, fearing to lose the last glimpse of him, she looked up quickly and sobbed to him to come back for a moment—but for a moment. It seemed to her, clinging there upon the gate, that when he went out into the darkness he had gone forever—that the thud of his footsteps in the dust was the last sound that would ever come from him to her ears.
Had he looked back she would have gone straight out to him, had he raised a finger she would have followed with a cheerful face; but he did not look back, and at last his footsteps died away upon the road.