"Never!"
"Then you must part."
Jesse covered his face with his hands, and there against the deepening twilight I saw shadows reaching out from him, as though—slowly the shadows took form of high-shouldered wings and mighty pinions sweeping to the ground.
He looked up, and behold he was changed.
"Pray for me, sir!" he whispered.
Then the priest raised his hand, and gave him the benediction.
* * * * * *
Jesse Closes the Book
It is years now since my lady left me. Never has an ax touched her trees, or any human creature entered her locked house. The rustle of her dress is in the leaves each fall, the pines still echo to her voice. I hear her footsteps over the new snow, I feel her presence when I read her books. I know her thoughts are spirits haunting me, and all things wait until she comes back. Not until I lost my lady did I ever hear that faint, thin, swaying echo when her grove seemed to be humming tunes. At times when dew was falling, I have heard the pattering of millions and millions of little feet, just as she said, making the grass bend.
The papers often have pictures of my lady, the last as the Electra of Euripides. I love her most of all in the Grecian robes, for once she dreamed that she and I had been Greeks in some lost forgotten life. Perhaps this is not our only life, or our last life, and we may be mated in some place yet to come, where we shall not part.