Then she brought her eyes down slowly from the rose-flush in the cloud and looked at him and said, “Jack.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “here I am. What is it that you wish to say?”
She answered, “I am come to give you back your kiss.”
GOOD-BY TO MOPSA
So she stooped forward as she stood on her step and kissed him, and her tears fell on his cheek.
“Farewell,” she said; and she turned and went up the steps into the great hall. Jack gazed at her as she entered, and would fain have followed, but could not stir, the great doors closed together again, and he was left outside. Then he knew, without having been told, that he should never enter them any more.
Suddenly he perceived that reeds were growing up between him and the great doors, and he walked on among them toward the west. Then, as the rosy sky turned gold color, all on a sudden he came to the edge of the reed-bed and walked out upon a rising ground. Jack ran up it, looking for the castle. At last he saw it, lying so far, so very far off that all its clear outlines were lost; and very soon, as it grew dark, they seemed to mingle with the shapes of the hill and the forest.
He looked up into the rosy sky, and held out his arms, and called: “Come! Oh, come!” In a minute or two he saw a little black mark overhead, a small speck, that grew larger and larger. In another instant he saw a red light and a green light; then he heard the winnowing noise of a bird’s great wings, and suddenly the great white bird alighted at his feet and said: “Here I am.”
“I wish to go home,” said Jack.
“That is well,” answered the bird.