"Two years! Emptiness! Loneliness! Two years!" Sometimes tears blinded me, sometimes anger shook me, but always was the pain of loss, the yearning for that loved and vanished presence.—"Two years!"
More than once I turned to hasten back—to end this misery—back to my Diana, this maid who was more precious, more necessary to my life than I had ever dreamed. I should have but to lift my finger, nay … one look and she would be in my arms … so very easy, and therefore … so utterly impossible.
Sometimes I hurried on at breathless speed, sometimes crept on slow, unwilling feet, sometimes stood motionless to stare blindly about me, raged at and torn by conflicting thoughts … agonising … irresolute.
How long I wandered thus I cannot say, but the sun was low when, amid the leafy whispering of familiar tree, I heard the cheery ring of the Tinker's anvil.
At sight of me he dropped his hammer and fell back a step.
"Why Peregrine," said he. "Why, Perry lad—don't look so! Is aught wrong?"
"Only my heart is breaking, I think!" said I, and casting myself down at the foot of a tree, I covered my face.
"God love me!" exclaimed the Tinker; and then he was kneeling beside me. "What is it, lad, what is it?"
"I've sent my Diana from me!"
"Sent her from ye, lad?"