"You have no sins to me," she made answer to him. She did not stir; nor did the deadly calm on her face change; but her voice had a harsh metallic sound, like the jar of a bell that is broken.
He was silent also. The coldness and the arrogance of his heart were pained and humbled by her pardon of them. He knew that he had been pitiless to her—with a pitilessness less excusable than that which is born of the fierceness of passion and the idolatrous desires of the senses. Man would have held him blameless here, because he had forborne to pluck for his own delight this red and gold reed in the swamp; but he himself knew well that, nevertheless, he had trodden its life out, and so bruised it, as he went, that never would any wind of heaven breathe music through its shattered grace again.
"When do you go?" she asked.
Her voice had still the same harsh, broken sound in it. She did not lift the lids of her eyes; her arms were crossed upon her breast;—all the ruins of the trampled poppy-blossom were about her, blood-red as a field where men have fought and died.
He answered her, "At dawn."
"And where?"
"To Paris. I will find fame—or a grave."
A long silence fell between them. The church chimes, far away in the darkness, tolled the ninth hour. She stood passive, colorless as the poppies were, bloodless from the thick, dull beating of her heart. The purple shadow and the white stars swam around her. Her heart was broken; but she gave no sign. It was her nature to suffer to the last in silence.
He looked at her, and his own heart softened; almost he repented him.
He stretched his arms to her, and drew her into them, and kissed the dew-laden weight of her hair, and the curling, meek form, while all warmth had died, and the passionate loveliness, which was cast to him, to be folded in his bosom or thrust away by his foot—as he chose.