She raised her head suddenly and looked at him.
'What are you afraid of for me?' she said suddenly. 'There is nothing to be afraid of. If I fail I fail; I have enough always to live on, you say; and if I succeed——'
'Failure will not hurt you,' he said coldly; 'success may.'
'How can success hurt one unless one be very vain or very weak? I do not think I am vain, and I know I am strong.'
'My dear—you can go from the meadows to the world if you will, but remember you cannot come back from the world to the meadows.'
'Why? Did not many come from the world to Port-Royal when it stood yonder?'
'Yes; they came with sick hearts, with defeated hopes, with aching wounds, with disappointed passions; but they never stood in the green pastures, in the morning of life, again.'
There was a sigh in the words which brought them home to her heart with a sudden sense of all their meaning.
She was mute while the little crickets in the stalks of the hay grass sung their last little song of one note, which would soon end with the end of their tiny lives.
'You are not happy yourself?' she said after awhile. Astonishment and regret were in the question.