He pressed her hand, gratefully, but she pointed to the juniper-bush, which had struck them before.
“Let us go there,” she said, “lay your head on the mole-hill and whistle me something. Do you remember?”
“I should think so!”
“How long is it since then?”
“Seventeen years.”
“Oh, heavens, I have loved you so long already, and in the mean time have become an old maid! And I have waited for you from year to year, but you would not see it. ‘He must come at last,’ I thought, but you did not come. And then I was discouraged, and thought: ‘You cannot force yourself upon him; in reality he does not want you at all. You must come to some resolution.’ And to put an end to all my longings, I accepted my cousin, who for the last ten years had been dangling after me. He had made me laugh so often, and I thought he would—but enough of this—” and she shuddered. “Come, lie down—whistle.”
He shook his head and pointed with his hand silently across the heath, where, on the horizon, three lonely fir-trees stretched their rough arms towards the sky.
“Thither,” he said. “I cannot rest ere I have been there.”
“You are right,” she replied, and hand in hand they walked through the blooming heather, over which the wild bees were swarming, sleepily humming.
When they entered the cemetery the clock at the White House was striking noon. Twelve times it sounded in short strokes, a soft echo quivered in the air, and then all was quiet again; only the humming and singing continued.