"You aren't to go away. Sometimes I think you couldn't."
The work was done. She turned with a graceful movement of her body as she said the last words, and was putting the cups and saucers on the shelf, and the spoons with a rattle into a box.
"Hang up the cloth, Jim, and wake up. You aren't always asleep. I heard something about you yesterday. They say you are such a daddy man with horses that when you camped out Brolga way, the brumbies came down from off Mount Sorrowful to sing to you. Ah, Mister, I have got you smiling."
"I'm not Mister."
"Jim."
Silence fell again, and once more he grew conscious of the little sounds that accompanied the flight of time—the flutter of wings round a lamp; the swish of a girl's dress; the cries of insects from the dark. It was like standing by a river filled to both banks, which swept swiftly and smoothly to the sea, and hearing the small voices of multitudinous waters.... What did she say now?
"I found them specimens this morning. They was a little higher up the bank. Do you want to see them? They aren't far."
"We went to find them the first day I came here, Molly. Do you remember? It does not matter now. I shall remember we never found them. Come outside. I have a lot to say to-night. It will be cooler there, and talking is easier under the trees."
Then he found himself walking among the trees. She was on his right hand, and water glimmered in the distance. Summer lightnings were flickering in the skies. This night was as last night had been. Last night was as the night before had been. He could not believe they walked together for the last time. Yet Time moved out here, and Death found work to do. A clumsy beetle had blundered out of the dark, finding harbourage upon her fair hand. She had crushed it with a little blow, and the body had fallen in the grasses to wait the busybody ants. How much was starting and finishing just now over all the wide world?