It WAS French! I know. Among the bric-a-brac of my heart I still cherish some of those little slips of paper with which we made international love—question and answer.
"Vous allez m'oublier, et ne plus penser a moi—ni me voir. Les hommes—egoistes—menteurs, pas dire la verite..." so ran the questions, considerably devoid of auxiliary verbs and such details of construction.
"Je serais jamais t'oublier," ran the frightful answers!
Dear Pauline! Shall I ever see her again? She was but twenty-six. She may still live.
CHAPTER XIV
END OF BOOK THREE
So ended my pilgrimage. I had wandered far, had loved many, but I came back to London without the Golden Girl. I had begun my pilgrimage with a vision, and it was with a vision that I ended it. From all my goings to and fro upon the earth, I had brought back only the image of a woman's face,—the face of that strange woman of the moorland, still haunting my dreams of the night and the day.
It was autumn in my old garden, damp and forsaken, and the mulberry-tree was hung with little yellow shields. My books looked weary of awaiting me, and they and the whole lonely house begged me to take them where sometimes they might be handled by human fingers, mellowed by lamplight, cheered by friendly laughter.
The very chairs begged mutely to be sat upon, the chill white beds to be slept in. Yes, the very furniture seemed even lonelier than myself.