“Don’t speak,” she said, leading the way out of the grove.
We went into the house again to make sure that the fires had burned down. The room was darker now, filled with twilight shadows. The last of the logs were glowing red on the hearths, and the air was hot and heavy after the fresh outdoors. But how cheerful, how friendly, how like a human thing, with human feelings of warmth and welcome, the room seemed to me!
“It has been a wonderful day,” said I, as we turned from the fires to pass out. “I wonder if I shall ever have so much joy again in my house?”
The girl at my side did not answer. I looked at her, and saw that she was struggling with tears.
I did instinctively the only thing my clumsy ignorance could suggest–put my hand upon hers. She withdrew it quickly.
“No, no!” she cried under her breath. “Oh, I am such a fool! Fool–Middle English fool, fole, fol; Icelandic, fol; old French fol–always the same word!”
She broke into a plaintive little laugh, ran through the hall and lifted the stove lid to see if the fire there was out, and hastened to the road, where I had difficulty to keep pace with her as we walked up the slope to supper.
“You need a rest more than you think, I guess,” I tried to say, but she only answered, “I need it less!” and made off at once to her room. That night I didn’t go back to my house to work. I didn’t work at all. I looked out of my window at a young moon for a long while, and then–yes, I confess it, though I was thirty years old, I wrote a sonnet!