"Present suffering may be faced if there's light behind."
"There's not this light, Glenfernie.... O world! if there is some other light—"
"And time will do naught for me, Elspeth?"
"No. Time will do naught for you. It is over! And the day goes down and the world spins on."
They stood apart, without speaking, under their hands the heaped stones of the wall. The swallows skimmed; a tinkling of sheep-bells was heard; the stubble and the moor beyond the fields lay in gold, in sunken green and violet; the hilltops met the sky in a line long, clean, remote, and still. Elspeth spoke.
"I am going now, back home. Let's say good-by here, each wishing the other some good in, or maybe out of, this carefu' world!"
"You, also, are unhappy. Why?"
"I am not! Do I seem so? I am sorry for unhappiness—that is all! Of course we grow older," said Elspeth, "older and wiser. But you nor no one must think that I am unhappy! For I am not." She put out her hands to him. "Let us say good-by!"
"Is it so? Is it so?"
"Never make doubt of that! I want you to see that it is clean snapped—clean gone!"