"Ah!" A flame leaped into his eyes. He leant forward a little. "That reminds me I ought not to go without making a confession." He was taking a pocket-book from his breastpocket. He opened it, and held it under Nelly's eyes. There was a piece of blue ribbon there. She recognised it with a great leap of her heart. It was her own ribbon which she had lost that spring day as she stood on the balcony looking down at the soldiers.
"You recognise it? It was yours. The wind blew it down close to my hand. I caught it. I have kept it ever since. May I keep it still? It can do no harm to anybody, my having it—may I keep it?"
She answered something under her breath, which he construed to be "Yes." She had been feeling the cruelty of it all, that their last hour together should be taken up by talking of commonplaces. At the sudden change in his tone—although it was unhappy, there was passion in it, and the chill seemed to pass away from her heart—the tears filled her eyes, overflowed them, ran warmly down her cheeks.
At the sight of those tears the young man forgot everything, except that she was lovely and he loved her and she was crying for him. He leaped to her side and dropped on his knees. He put both his arms about her and pressed her closely to him.
"Are you crying because I am going, my darling?" he said. "Good heavens! don't cry—I'm not worth it. And yet I shall remember, when the world is between us, that you cried because I was going, you angel of mercy."
An older woman than Nelly might have had the presence of mind to ask him why he was going. But she was silent. She felt it over-whelmingly sweet to be held so, to feel his hand smoothing her hair. The bunch of lilies of the valley she had been wearing was crushed between his breast and her breast. The sweetness of them rose up as something exquisite and forlorn. His hand moved tremblingly over her hair to her cheek.
"Give me a kiss, Nelly," he said, "and I will go. Just one kiss. I shall never have another in all my days. Good-bye, my heart's delight."
For a second their lips clung together. Then his arms relaxed. He put her down gently into a chair. She lay back with closed eyes. She heard the door shut behind her. Then she sprang to her feet, realising that he was gone and it was too late to recall him.
Why should he go? she asked herself, as, with trembling hands, she arranged the disorder of her hair. Then the merely conventional came in, as it will even at such tense moments. She asked herself how she would look to his sister, if she appeared at this moment; to the maid, who might be expected at any moment bringing in the lamp. The room was dark but for the firelight. How would she look, with her tear-stained visage and the disorder of her appearance? She could not sit and make small talk. That was a heroism beyond her. And she was afraid to speak to anyone lest she should break down. She adopted a cowardly course. Afterwards she must explain it to Mrs. Rooke somehow. She put the consideration of how out of sight: it could wait till the turmoil of her thoughts was over.
She stole from the room, let herself out quietly, and was grateful for the dark and the cool, frosty air. About five minutes after she had gone Mrs. Rooke came in laden with small parcels.