"When are you coming back?" I asked, hastily.
"Perhaps never," he said, with an important air. "You know--a soldier----"
"Yes, there is a threatening of war," I whispered, and my childish heart felt an intolerable pang as I spoke.
He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh.
"And, at all events, you, when I come back, will be a young lady with--lovers--and you will hardly remember me."
"Oh, Harry, how can you talk so!"
Rather awkwardly he holds out to me his long slender hand, in which I place my own.
Ah, how secure my cold, weak fingers feel in that warm strong hand! Why do I suddenly recall the long-past moonlit evenings in Komaritz when we sat together on the garden-steps and Harry told me ghost-stories, in dread of which, when they grew too ghastly, I used to cling close to him as if to find shelter in his strong young life from the bloodless throng of spirits he was evoking?
Thus we stand, hand in hand, before the white rose, the last which autumn had left. It droops above us, and its cheering fragrance mingles with the autumnal odours around us. I pluck it, stick it in Harry's button-hole, and then suddenly begin to sob convulsively. He clasps me close, close in his arms, kisses me, and murmurs, "Do not forget me!" and I kiss him too, and say, "Never--never!" while around us the faded leaves fall silently upon the grass.