“Indeed they can, or just as bad,” replied Jane. Then suddenly she threw her arms about her lover’s neck and burying her beautiful face upon his breast, she began to sob bitterly, murmuring, “Oh my darling, my darling, what shall I do without you?”
Over the brief and distressing scene which followed it may be well to drop a veil. Leonard’s bitterness of mind forsook him now, and he kissed her and comforted her as he might best, even going so far as to mingle his tears with hers, tears of which he had no cause to be ashamed. At length she tore herself loose, for the shouts were growing louder and more insistent.
“I forgot,” she sobbed, “here is a farewell present for you; keep it in memory of me, Leonard,” and thrusting her hand into the bosom of her dress she drew from it a little packet which she gave to him.
Then once more they kissed and clung together, and in another moment she had vanished back into the snow and darkness, passing out of Leonard’s sight and out of his life, though from his mind she could never pass.
“A farewell present. Keep it in memory of me.” The words yet echoed in his ears, and to Leonard they seemed fateful—a prophecy of utter loss. Sighing heavily, he opened the packet and examined its contents by the feeble moonlight. They were not large: a prayer-book bound in morocco, her own, with her name on the fly-leaf and a short inscription beneath, and in the pocket of its cover a lock of auburn hair tied round with silk.
“An unlucky gift,” said Leonard to himself; then putting on his coat, which was yet warm from Jane’s shoulders, he also turned and vanished into the snow and the night, shaping his path towards the village inn.
He reached it in due course, and passed into the little parlour that adjoined the bar. It was a comfortable room enough, notwithstanding its adornments of badly stuffed birds and fishes, and chiefly remarkable for its wide old-fashioned fireplace with wrought-iron dogs. There was no lamp in the room when Leonard entered, but the light of the burning wood was bright, and by it he could see his brother seated in a high-backed chair gazing into the fire, his hand resting on his knee.
Thomas Outram was Leonard’s elder by two years and cast in a more fragile mould. His face was the face of a dreamer, the brown eyes were large and reflective, and the mouth sensitive as a child’s. He was a scholar and a philosopher, a man of much desultory reading, with refined tastes and a really intimate knowledge of Greek gems.
“Is that you, Leonard?” he said, looking up absently; “where have you been?”
“To the Rectory,” answered his brother.