I could scarcely hear my own voice when I echoed the words.
“He cannot—stay?”
“Oh! the time will come,” she said, “when people who love each other will not be separated, when on this very earth there will be no pain, no grief, no age, no death—when all the world has learned the Law at last. But we have not learned it yet. And here we stand! The greatest specialists have told us. There is some fatal flaw in his heart. At any moment, when he is talking to us, when he is at his work, when he is asleep, he may—cease. It will just be ceasing. At any moment. He cannot stay.”
My own heart stood still for a second. Then there rose before me slowly, but clearly, a vision—the vision which was not a dream.
“Out on the hillside,” I murmured. “Out on the hillside.”
I clung to her with both arms and held her tight. I understood now why they had talked about The Fear. These two who were almost one soul were trying to believe that they were not really to be torn apart—not really. They were trying to heap up for themselves proof that they might still be near each other. And, above all, his effort was to save her from the worst, worst woe. And I understood, too, why something wiser and stronger than myself had led me to tell the dream which was not a dream at all.
But it was as she said; the world had not learned the Secret yet. And there we stood. We did not cry or talk, but we clung to each other—we CLUNG. That is all human creatures can do until the Secret is known. And as we clung the nightingale broke out again.
“O nightingale! O nightingale!” she said in her low wonder of a voice. “WHAT are you trying to tell us!”