I half turned back. No. I would go on. Not to see her. Not to clasp her in my arms, as I had hoped to do. Never that again. I would but pass by on the other side. It was to be my farewell.
There was a light burning in the house when I came up to it. I fancied I could see through the window in the glare of the candle Lucille. Yes, there she was. Like a thief in the night I crept nearer until I could discern her face. Her head was resting on her hands; she seemed waiting for some one. I prayed it might be me, yet she must wait in vain.
Nearer I went. She turned, and gazed out into the night, straight at me. But I slipped into the shadow of an oak tree, that by no chance she might see me. She was more beautiful than ever. Oh, why had she not told me all that was in the past, before she let me love her.
The wind rustled through the trees, sighing like a lost soul, a most mournful sound. I stretched up my hands to the sky; I reached them out to the woman I loved. Both were beyond me.
Once more I looked at her. She had risen from her seat. She stooped over the candle, so that the glare showed me her fair face, the ringlets of her hair, the soft curve of her throat, all her loveliness.
“Lucille!” I cried, but the word was tossed back to me by the wind.
“Lucille!” I whispered, but a moonbeam stole her name away.
“Lucille!” She snuffed the candle, and it went out in a blur of darkness, so that the night swallowed her up, and I was left alone.
Then with the bitter heart of a man who has no sweetness left in life I came away.
As I took the road to the inn I thought that once or twice along the path, half hidden by the trees, a form followed me. I stopped, and looked intently at the black shadow.