“Fisherman, remember”—
“Eve, Eve, how shall I remember, with you sitting beside me, and your eyes smiling, and that light upon your hair?”
“Then I will not smile nor sit beside you. And so I must go”—
“No, no,” I cried. “Stay, for the pity of man. I will remember,—or I will try. I cannot promise more. A fisherman and a governess! So I may not give you the pebbles, Eve, but I will bargain with you.”
“For what?”
“For that rose you wear.” For she wore a great red rose upon her bosom.
She considered. “It is a fair bargain,” she said at last, “and I agree. A rose for your pebbles.”
So she took her rose and fastened it upon my coat. And I did not speak nor thank her, for I could not. What foolish thing should I have said? It was hard enough not to kiss the hand so near my lips. And we sat there a long while in silence, she looking at the west, and I gazing up at her or idly sticking the little pebbles in the sod. And when the sun was gone and she rose to go, she saw the pebbles, and they made two words, ADAM and EVE. I thought she would have stamped upon them, but she did not. She only smiled and bade me good-night.
And so for days I lived in purgatory and in paradise, wandering the shore, without purpose save to pass the endless day till sunset; and at evening I sat with Eve upon the bank until the twilight faded, and she left me. And the weeds sprang in my garden, and my neighbors laughed at me more than ever. For I went clamming at high tide. And upon my mantel, between two plates of glass that were cunningly bound about the edges, was a red rose.
Then, one evening, I waited there upon the bank and no Eve came. And I fretted and fumed and mourned until I bethought me of the great stone. Without hope, I looked beneath; and, wonder of wonders, there was a scrap of paper with its message. “They will not let me come to-night.” And I acted like the fool I was, and kissed the dainty thing, and thrust it in my pocket, and pulled it out again a dozen times. Never having seen her writing, I should know it, it was so like her. And I tore a corner, though I hated to,—I had no other paper,—and wrote, “We miss you, the sun and I. Eve, Eve, do not fail to-morrow. Do not shut the gates upon me yet.” And I put it beneath the stone and went away.