“It is emblematic of life,” said he, reaching his hand out through the bars to her, as if to beg her not to grieve over the clouds of a day; “you know there are lots of comparisons and verses and sayings about it in that relation. It seems to me that I’ve always had more of the bitter than the sweet–but it will all come out right in time.”
She touched his hand.
“Do you like mignonette?” she asked. “I’ve brought you some.”
“I love it!” said he with boyish impetuosity. “I had a bed of it last–no, I mean the summer before last–before I was–before I went to work for Isom.”
She took the flowers from her bosom and placed them in his hand. The scent of them was in his nostrils, stirring memories of his old days of simple poverty, of days in the free fields. Again he turned his face toward the window, the little flowers clutched in his hand. His breast heaved as if he fought in the deep waters of his soul against some ignoble weakness.
She moved a little nearer, and reached timidly through the bars with the breathless quiet of one who offers a caress to a sleeper. Her finger-tips touched his arm.
“Joe,” said she, as if appealing in pity to him for permission to share his agony.
He lifted the flowers to his lips and kissed the stems where her hand had clasped them; then bowed his head, his strong shoulders against the bars.
“Joe!” Her voice was a whisper in his ear, more than 224 pity in it, so it seemed to him in the revelation of that moment; more than entreaty, more than consolation.
Her hand was on his arm; he turned to her, shaking the fallen locks of his wild hair back from his brow. Then her hand was in his, and there was a warm mist, as of summer clouds, before his eyes. Her face was before him, and near–so near. Not red like the bitter-sweet, but pale as the winter dawn. Her eyes were wide, her chin was lifted, and he was straining her to him with the jail door bars against his breast.