But I knew then and I know now that Abel's dreams flowed in his blood, and that when he gave them to his corner of the world he gave from his own veins; and I think that the world is the richer for that.
When he had gone I stood still in the road, waiting. I distinguished a lintel of elms, a wall of wild roses; I heard a brave little bird twittering impatient matins, and the sound of nearing footsteps in the road. And then a voice in the mist said my name.
There in the fog on the Plank Road we met as if there had come a clearness everywhere—we two, between whom lay that year since my coming to Friendship. Only, now that he was with me, I observed that the traitor year had slipped away as if it had never been, and had left us two alone in a place so sightly that at last I recognized my own happiness. And I understood—and this way of understanding leaves one a breathless being—that his happiness was there too.
And yet it was only: "You.... But what an adventure to meet you here!" And from him: "Me. Here. Please, may we go to your house? I haven't had an indication of breakfast." At which we laughed somewhat, with my, "How absurdly like you not to have had breakfast," and his, "How very shabby of you to feel superior because you happen to have had your coffee." So we moved back down the road with the clear little space in the fog following, following....
A kind of passion for detail seized on us both.
He said: "You're wearing brown. I've never seen you wear brown—I'm sure I haven't. Have I?"
"My fur coat was brown," I escaped into the subject, "but then that hardly counts."
"No," he agreed, "fur isn't a colour. Fur is just fur. No, I've never seen you in brown."
"How did they let you off at the draw? How did you know about getting off at the draw?" I demanded.
"You said something of your getting off there—in that one letter, you know...."