She stayed for a moment. As she reached her door the wind rose, sifting through the grass, rising to her chin.
IV
The two figures met, unconsciously, without spoken arrangement, pushed towards one another by destiny, as they had been meeting now continuously during the last weeks.
Almost always at this hour; almost always at this place. On the sandy path in the green hollow below the Cathedral, above the stream, the hollow under the opposite hill, the hill where the field was, the field where they had the Fair.
Down into this green depth the sunset could not strike, and the chimes, telling over so slowly and so sweetly the three-quarters, filtered down like a memory, a reiteration of an old promise, a melody almost forgotten. But above her head the woman, looking up, could see the rose change to orange and could watch the cloud, like a pool of green water, extend and rest, lying like a sheet of glass behind which the orange gleamed.
They met always thus, she coming from the town as though turning upwards through the tangled path to her home in the Precincts, he sauntering slowly, his hands behind his back, as though he had been wandering there to think out some problem....
Sometimes he did not come, sometimes she could not. They never stayed more than ten minutes there together. No one from month to month at that hour crossed that desolate path.
To-day he began impetuously. "If you hadn't come to-night, I think I would have gone to find you. I had to see you. No, I had nothing to say. Only to see you. But I am so lonely in that house. I always knew I was lonely-- never more than when I was married--but now.... If I hadn't these ten minutes most days I'd die, I think...."
They didn't touch one another, but stood opposite gazing, face into face.
"What are we to do?" he said. "It can't be wicked just to meet like this and to talk a little."