"It's quite safe now," he said, as if to reassure her. "Nothing can happen now. A pity our fellows missed them, though, in the fog."
Dully her mind repeated, "Nothing can happen now." She stood there waiting.
But for Godfrey, whose reactions came more slowly, the golden hour had not yet passed. He lingered still beneath the spell of the morning's high adventure, when Muriel had smiled up at him out of the mist.
"I'm going away," he said. "I've got to report to Aldershot to-morrow. I don't know when I shall see you again."
"Oh, then I expect that this is good-bye."
She felt that she had known this all along, and that it was good-bye indeed. Her hour had come and passed her. She did not honour love the less, but knew herself to be unworthy of it. She stood silently, waiting for him to leave her, though she felt as though he had left her long ago. She held out her hand, but in the darkness she failed to find his. She touched his arm instead, with a touch, light as a flower. He brushed her hand aside and swept her into his arms.
She lay there, limply, unreasoningly, thinking of nothing but that the bitterness of parting had passed over her long ago, like the waters of Mara. His lips brushed the dark smoothness of her hair, the pale oval of her upturned face, and she did not resist. He had already left her. This was a dream.
"Muriel, Muriel!" Her mother's voice called from the landing. Here was something that belonged to her real life, that she could understand. "Muriel, come and help me to bring your aunt downstairs."
She responded to the claim that she had always known, broke from him without a word, and ran upstairs.
When she returned, five minutes later, Godfrey had gone.