‘To a country beyond the sun-setting, where all who love me are,’ she said gently.
‘If you go, I must also go,’ said William John in a masterful way, still keeping his eyes on her face. ‘I learnt to love you in your hare-shape, dear, but I love you a thousand times more now I see you as you are. I could not live without you now.’
‘If you love me as you say you do, and cannot live without me, you may come,’ said the lovely maid, lifting her shy eyes to his. ‘You have the right to come with me by the good you have wrought. It is a fair land whither I am going, where there are always buds and blossoms on the trees, where the happy birds are always in song, and where the Foot of Evil dare not enter. It is time I was away. The sun is setting, and his path of glory is narrowing on the sea. Come, if you will. I love you, too, dear.’
And giving him her little hand, which he gladly took, they went both of them together out of the old orchard in the glow of the setting sun; and as they climbed a slope above the place of blossoming trees, an old man crossing the downs wondered who that handsome youth and lovely maid were making their way with locked hands and steadfast faces towards the sunset. But he never knew.
‘In the glow of the setting sun.’
From that day onwards the little White Hare was never again seen in the old beautiful orchard, and nobody ever knew what had become of William John.
London:
Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., Ltd.,
3, Paternoster Buildings