He found the path between the pines, walked a few steps and stumbled. He sat down on the log that had tripped him. He had no wish to go on. His depression was intense. Night was before him and darkness. Loneliness. And Jane would be with Frederick Towne.
He had for Jane a feeling of hopeless adoration. She would never be his. For how could he try to keep her? “I’ll be a gull over the sea—a ship in full sail—a gypsy on the road—never a ghost in a fog.”
And he was just a ghost in a fog! Oh, what was the use of ever “climbing up the climbing wave”? One must have something of hope to live on. A dream or two—ahead.
How long he sat there he did not know. And all at once he was aware of a pale blur against the prevailing gloom. And then he heard Jane’s voice calling, “Evans? Evans?”
He answered and she came up to him. “Your mother telephoned—that you had not come home—and she was worried.”
She was holding the lantern up to the length of her arm. In her orange cloak she shone through the veil of mist, luminous.
“My dear,” she said, gently, “why are you sitting here?”
“Because there isn’t any use in going on.”
She lowered the lantern so that it shone on his face. What she saw there frightened her. “Are you feeling this way because of me?” she asked in a shaking voice.
“Because of everything.”