“No, not frightened. Only this place weighs upon me a little, and the years have seemed so long while I have been waiting. How good you are to me!”
“I’ll try to be, dear love,” he said. “I’ll bring such sunshine into your life, it shall be such a time of happy holidays that you shall forget all the weariness, all the waiting; I’ll make you forget it.”
“Yes,” she said, looking round the garden again, “yes, I’ll try to forget it—hark! what was that?”
She drew away from him suddenly and stood with her hands clasped on her breast, looking toward the gate they had left. A faint light shone beyond it in the road, but all was still and quiet.
“I hear nothing,” said Comethup.
She stood listening for a moment, and then laughed and came back to him. “I thought I heard some one come into the garden,” she said with a smile. “But it was only fancy. When one has wandered long in a desolate place like this, and has had no companion but one’s own thoughts, one is full of fears and fancies.” She threw her arms suddenly about him, and hid her face upon his breast. “Take me away soon, dear,” she whispered; “let me forget everything. You don’t know, can’t guess, how bitterly, bitterly tired I am of it all.”
He soothed her with gentle words, and presently led her toward the house. Beneath the little balcony she stopped and put her hands upon his breast and thrust him gently away.
“Don’t come in,” she whispered. “I am very tired, and shall go straight to my room. I’ll see you to-morrow, and many other to-morrows,” she added, smiling.
“Good-night, dear love,” he replied. “Do you remember the night I came here first, after my return, and saw you on the balcony up there, and you ran down to me?”
“Y—yes,” she replied, “I remember. Good-night!” She kissed him swiftly and slipped out of his arms and ran up the steps, paused on the balcony for a moment to blow a kiss to him, and was gone.