"What is it?" asked her lover in dismay, half rising in his turn. "What is it, Pansy?" He pressed her tenderly to him. "Why are your eyes cast down?"
The teardrops trembled a moment and fell; the girl turned, and hid her face in the pillow.
"Pansy, oh, my love!" he whispered, filled with a burning desire to comfort her.
The girl's bare shoulders quivered, and her breast heaved with suppressed sobs.
It was like a cold iron through his soul—as if he had been soaring in the bluest heights, to fall now, broken-winged, among sharp rocks, hearing sounds of misery on every side.
Heavily he threw himself down beside her, and hid his face in her dark hair.
Two children of men, with shoulders heaving and faces wet with tears…. The room seemed full of their sighing.
The sun turned away and hid his darkened face.
"It is sorrow," whispered the fuchsia, and a red tear fell on the window-sill below.
* * * * *