She paused and looked up into my face.
"Happiness!" she said a little bitterly, "the crown of my life! I don't know what you mean. I only know that you suffer; I have just heard your story."
"Ah, don't speak of that! There are other things. There is love."
"Love and I passed each other long years ago," she said. "Love mocked me, laughed at me, left me alone."
"But he may return."
"It is unlikely. I am not young. But I don't want to talk of myself. I want only to speak of you. A little while back you said—you said that the fear of death fell from you. What did you mean?"
"Just what I said," and I bent my head and kissed her. "I think I hear Dimbie."
He came down the lane whistling, through the white gate—a dark, mysterious figure.
"Three mushrooms!" he called gaily. "One for each of us. Now I must light up. You are all in the dark."
"We are all in the dark," said Jane hopelessly.