“Are you able to stand the trip? Don’t go just for my pleasure.”
“I shall enjoy it more than you will,” he said. “It’s what I need. Haven’t I always told you how selfish I was.”
Without another word she obeyed him, delighted at the prospect. Van Cortlandt was beautiful. They took a little boat and went out on the lake. So precious was the silence—the solitude—the shadow of the willows, that Glenn allowed Esther to take the oars he had taught her to handle and stretched himself full length in the boat. The water trembled under the sweet wind that blew fresh upon him.
Esther was in one of her rapturous moods, gazing with wide, dilated eyes upon the spring woods opening out to screen the unresponsive world—leaving them alone together. She could see it all reviving him like wine.
“Esther?” The name and touch thrilled her.
“When they told me I might not get well, I thought of you—I had something to tell you.”
“Tell me now.”
“That was if I had to die.”
“Oh, don’t speak of your death!” Her voice thrilled with a passion she herself did not understand.
“What I said as a child is still true. Life could not be sweet to me with you out of it.”