CHAPTER VIII
Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.
Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, away!Shelley.
Once outside, Richard flew along as though pursued by a thousand demons; here were the downs, with their delicious tart air—but he raced across them without pausing to inhale it; now to swing over the hedge and to cover the ground that still lay between him and the garden. The garden and her! His heart was thumping loudly against his ribs; a sound as of a rushing sea was in his ears. On, on! there were the lights twinkling from under the dark eaves—there was the gate set in the high wall. How it shook beneath his violent hand as he flung it open! He stood still at last, hardly breathing in his suspense. Was she there? All was still save for the rustling of the boughs and the faint warbling of the birds—more than one was celebrating evensong to-night. What if she should not be there! He walked on, slowly and unsteadily now, and presently there was a movement amid the greenery close at hand. Out of a little arbour set amid the shrubs a figure came gliding forth to meet him. She paused two paces away from him and her hands fell by her sides.
‘It is you?’ she said, almost in a whisper.
‘Yes, it is I.’
They stood facing each other in unbroken silence for a full minute, and then she asked, still in that breathless whisper:
‘Why did you come?’
‘Because I could not keep away.’
She turned and began slowly to pace down the path between the roses. Waves of perfume were wafted to their nostrils from the syringa blossom. Yes, yonder stood the bush just as he had pictured to himself. The remembrance suddenly flashed across Richard as he walked beside her that these shrubs were sometimes called ‘Mock Orange Trees.’ Mock Orange Trees! Mock Orange Blossom!—he must not pursue that thought further.
‘I kept away for four days,’ he said suddenly. ‘I tried to keep away to-day.’