"Peregrine," she whispered, "O Peregrine, can this indeed be you? My loved Peregrine, my gentleman that was so chivalrous and gentle once, and now to hurt me so wilfully—so bitterly!"
"I am two years older, and—a little wiser, perhaps."
"Two years!" she repeated dully. "Two years I should never have left you—it was wrong! And yet—can two years work so great a change in any one? Ah, no, no—this cannot be you—so cold—so hard and cruel! Oh, if we might but have those two years back again when you were your own dear self and I your loving gipsy girl with no ambition but to be worthy of—just you! O Peregrine, is your love for me truly dead—so soon?"
As thus she spoke, all pleading, passionate entreaty, she came towards me with both arms outstretched, her eyes abrim with tears; but, frowning at her ungloved hand, I started back so hurriedly that she stopped and looked at me as if I had struck her; then she shrank away, her proud head drooped, her arms fell and she covered her face. "Then it is true!" she gasped, "all—dreadfully true." And upon the silence stole the sweetly plaintive notes of the blackbird calling, calling from the orchard below.
And as she stood thus, bowed and shaken with her grief, I kept my gaze ever upon that betraying scarabaeus ring. Suddenly she raised her head and I saw her tearless but very pale.
"Yes, you are changed," said she, in that strange, passionless tone, "quite changed; your eyes are cold, your face cruel and hard and yet—O dear God!" she cried, "O dear God, I cannot believe your love is truly dead—how can I? O dear, dear Peregrine, tell me you do love me still—if only just a little—oh, be merciful, dear—!"
And now indeed she was weeping but, blinded by her tears, choked by her sobs, she yet reached out her arms to me in mute appeal; and it seemed that somehow her tears were blinding me also, her passionate sobs shaking me, for I stood in a mist, groping for the support of my chair-back; indistinctly I heard a voice speak that I knew was mine.
"So you still wear the scarab ring—I've seen it before. But where is your veil with the gold stars? I did love you once—worshipped—reverenced your maidenly purity—your brave truthfulness but—that love is dead—crushed—crushed beneath red wheels, and I would to God I were dead with it. No—if you please, don't touch me—by your leave I will sit—and beg you to excuse me. I—would be alone."
"Ah, Peregrine—beloved, you are crying too!"
"Indeed yes. I grieve that I am not dead."