The wind sighed towards them, bringing the scent of hidden water.
"I must leave you, my own—or I shall be late. Now for months of hard work and hungry dreams of Janey, who will be given at last to my great hunger. Little heart, do you know what it is to hunger?"
She trembled. "Yes."
"Then pity me. Pity me from the fields when you walk in them, as you and I have so often walked, over fallen leaves—pity me from your fire when you sit by it and see in the embers things too beautiful to be—from your meals when you eat them—you and I have had only one meal together, Janey—and from your bed when you lie waking in it. Janey, Janey—pity me."
"Pity ... yes...."
He was holding her in his arms, looking into her beautiful, haggard face. A sudden pang contracted her limbs, then released them into an abandonment of weakness.
"Quentin ... promise me that you will never forget how much you loved me."
"Janey!"
"Promise me."