"Some day," said I, "some day, if there is a just God in heaven, we shall meet again; perhaps soon, perhaps late. Until then, let us dream of that glorious, golden some day, but now—farewell, oh, beloved wife!"
With a broken cry, she drew my head down upon her breast, and clasped it there, while her tears mingled with her kisses, and so—crying my name, she turned, and was lost among the leaves.
CHAPTER XLIII
HOW I SET OUT TO FACE MY DESTINY
The pallid moon shone down pitilessly upon the dead, white face that stared up at me through its grime and blood, with the same half-tolerant, half-amused contempt of me that it had worn in life; the drawn lips seemed to mock me, and the clenched fists to defy me still; so that I shivered, and turned to watch the oncoming light that danced like a will-o'-the-wisp among the shadows. Presently it stopped, and a voice hailed once more:
"Hallo!"
"Hallo!" I called back; "this way—this way!" In a little while I saw the figure of a man whom I at once recognized as the one-time Postilion, bearing the lanthorn of a chaise, and, as he approached, it struck me that this meeting was very much like our first, save for him who lay in the shadows, staring up at me with unwinking eyes.
"So ho!" exclaimed the Postilion as he came up, raising his lanthorn that he might view me the better; "it's you again, is it?"
"Yes," I nodded.
"Well, I don't like it," he grumbled, "a-meeting of each other again like this, in this 'ere ghashly place—no, I don't like it—too much like last time to be nat'ral, and, as you know, I can't abide onnat'ralness. If I was to ax you where my master was, like as not you'd tell me 'e was—"