Just one foreground wish in his mind was granted. There was an orchard strip by White Farm, and here, beneath a red-apple tree, he found Elspeth alone. She was perfectly direct with him.
"Willy told us that you were home. I thought you might come now to White Farm. I was watching. I wanted to speak to you where none was by. Let us cross the burn and walk in the fields."
The fields were reaped, lay in tawny stubble. The path ran by this and by a lichened stone wall. Overhead, swallows were skimming. Heath and bracken, rolled the colored hills. The air swam cool and golden, with a smell of the harvest earth.
"Elspeth, I stayed away years and years and years, and I stayed away not one hour!"
She stopped; she stood with her back to the wall. The farm-house had sunk from sight, the sun was westering, the fields lay dim gold and solitary. She had over her head a silken scarf, the ends of which she drew together and held with one brown, slender hand against her breast. She wore a dark gown; he saw her bosom rise and fall.
"I watched for you to tell you that this must not go on any longer. I came to my mind when you were gone, Mr. Alexander—I came to my mind! I think that you are braw and noble, but in the way of loving, as love is between man and woman, I have none for you—I have none for you!"
The sun appeared to dip, the fields to darken. Pain came to Glenfernie, wildering and blinding. He stood silent.
"I might have known before you went—I might have known from that first meeting, in May, in the glen! But I was a fool, and vague, and willing, I suppose, to put tip of tongue to a land of sweetness! If, mistaken myself, I helped you to mistake, I am bitter sorry and I ask your forgiveness! But the thing, Glenfernie, the thing stands! It's for us to part."
He stared at her dumbly. In every line of her, in every tone of her, there was finality. He was tenacious of purpose, capable of long-sustained and patient effort, but he seemed to know that, for this life, purpose and effort here might as well be laid aside. The knowledge wrapped him, quiet, gray, and utter. He put his hands to his brow; he moved a few steps to and fro; he came to the wall and leaned against it. It seemed to him that he regarded the clay-cold corpse of his life.
"O the world!" cried Elspeth. "When we are little it seems so little! If you suffer, I am sorry."