“Yes, I know.”
“You will be happy alone?—alone in the desert?”
When he said that she felt suddenly the agony of the waterless spaces, the agony of the unpeopled wastes. Her whole spirit shrank and quivered, all the great joy of her love died within her. A moment before she had stood upon the heights of her heart. Now she shrank into its deepest, blackest abysses. She looked at him and said nothing.
“You will not be happy alone.”
His voice no longer trembled. He caught hold of her left hand, awkwardly, nervously, but held it strongly with his close to his side, and went on speaking.
“Nobody is happy alone. Nothing is—men and women—children—animals.” A bird flew across the shadowy space under the trees, followed by another bird; he pointed to them; they disappeared. “The birds, too, they must have companionship. Everything wants a companion.”
“Yes.”
“But then—you will stay here alone in the desert?”
“What else can I do?” she said.
“And that journey,” he went on, still holding her hand fast against his side, “Your journey into the desert—you will take it alone?”