They talked, and were silent, and talked again with out question, or
sadness, or regret, or reproach; she mocking even at themselves,
mocking at this ‘change’—‘Why, and yet without it, would you ever even
have dreamed once a poor fool of a Frenchman went to his restless grave
for me—for me? Need we understand? Were we told to pry? Who made us
human must be human too. Why must we take such care, and make such a
fret—this soul? I know it, I know it; it is all we have—“to save,” they
say, poor creatures. No, never to _spend_, and so they daren’t for a
solitary instant lift it on the finger from its cage. Well, we have;
and now, soon, back it must go, back it must go, and try its best to
whistle the day out. And yet, do you know, perhaps the very freedom
does a little shake its—its monotony. It’s true, you see, they have
lived a long time; these Worldly Wisefolk they were wise before they
were swaddled....

‘There, and you are hungry?’ she asked him, laughing in his eyes. ‘Of
course, of course you are—scarcely a mouthful since that first still
wonderful supper. And you haven’t slept a wink, except like a tired-out
child after its first party, on that old garden chair. I sat and
watched, and yes, almost hoped you’d never wake in case—in case. Come
along, see, down there. I can’t go home just yet. There’s a little old
inn—we’ll go and sit down there—as if we were really trying to be
romantic! I know the woman quite well; we can talk there—just the day
out.’

They sat at a little table in the garden of ‘The Cherry Trees,’ its
thick green apple branches burdened with ripened fruit. And Grisel
tried to persuade him to eat and drink, ‘for to-morrow we die,’ she
said, her hands trembling, her face as it were veiled with a faint
mysterious light. ‘There are dozens and dozens of old stories, you know,’ she said,
leaning on her elbows, ‘dozens and dozens, meaning only us. You must,
you must eat; look, just an apple. We’ve got to say good-bye. And
faintness will double the difficulty.’ She lightly touched his hand as
if to compel him to smile with her. ‘There, I’ll peel it; and this is
Eden; and soon it will be the cool of the evening. And then, oh yes,
the voice will come. What nonsense I am talking. Never mind.’

They sat on in the quiet sunshine, and a spider slid softly through the
air and with busy claws set to its nets; and those small ghosts the
robins went whistling restlessly among the heavy boughs. A child presently came out of the porch of the inn into the garden, and
stood with its battered doll in its arms, softly watching them awhile. But when Grisel smiled and tried to coax her over, she burst out
laughing and ran in again. Lawford stooped forward on his chair with a groan. ‘You see,’ he said,
‘the whole world mocks me. You say “this evening”; need it be, must it
be this evening? If you only knew how far they have driven me. If you
only knew what we should only detest each other for saying and for
listening to. The whole thing’s dulled and staled. Who wants a
changeling? Who wants a painted bird? Who does not loathe the
converted?—and I’m converted to Sabathier’s God. Should we be sitting
here talking like this if it were not so? I can’t, I can’t go back.’

She rose and stood with her hand pressed over her mouth, watching him. ‘Won’t you understand?’ he continued. ‘I am an outcast—a felon caught
red-handed, come in the flesh to a hideous and righteous judgment. I
hear myself saying all these things; and yet, Grisel, I do, I do love
you with all the dull best I ever had. Not now, then; I don’t ask new
even. I can, I would begin again. God knows my face has changed enough
even as it is. Think of me as that poor wandering ghost of yours; how
easily I could hide away—in your memory; and just wait, wait for you. In time even this wild futile madness too would fade away. Then I could
come back. May I try?’

‘I can’t answer you. I can’t reason. Only, still, I do know, talk, put
off, forget as I may, must is must. Right and wrong, who knows what
_they_ mean, except that one’s to be done and one’s to be forsworn;
or—forgive, my friend, the truest thing I ever said—or else we lose the
savour of both. Oh, then, and I know, too, you’d weary of me. I know
you, Monsieur Nicholas, better than you can ever know yourself, though
you have risen from your grave. You follow a dream, no voice or face or
flesh and blood; and not to do what the one old raven within you cries
you _must,_ would be in time to hate the very sound of my footsteps. You shall go back, poor turncoat, and face the clearness, the utterly
more difficult, bald, and heartless clearness, as together we faced the
dark. Life is a little while. And though I have no words to tell what
always are and must be foolish reasons because they are not reasons at
all but ghosts of memory, I know in my heart that to face the worst is
your only hope of peace. Should I have staked so much on your finding
that, and now throw up the game? Don’t let us talk any more. I’ll walk
half the way, perhaps. Perhaps I will walk _all_ the way. I think my
brother guesses—at least _my_ madness. I’ve talked and talked him
nearly past his patience. And then, when you are quite safely, oh yes,
quite safely and soundly gone, then I shall go away for a little, so
that we can’t even hear each other speak, except in dreams. Life!—well,
I always thought it was much too plain a tale to have as dull an
ending. And with us the powers beyond have played a newer trick, that’s
all. Another hour, and we will go. Till then there’s just the solitary
walk home and only the dull old haunted house that hoards as many
ghosts as we ourselves to watch our coming.’

Evening began to shine between the trees; they seemed to stand aflame,
with a melancholy rapture in their uplifted boughs above their fading
coats. The fields of the garnered harvest shone with a golden
stillness, awhir with shimmering flocks of starlings. And the old birds
that had sung in the spring sang now amid the same leaves, grown older
too to give them harbourage. Herbert was sitting in his room when they returned, nursing his teacup
on his knee while he pretended to be reading, with elbow propped on the
table. ‘Here’s Nicholas Sabathier, my dear, come to say goodbye awhile,’ said
Grisel. She stood for a moment in her white gown, her face turned
towards the clear green twilight of the open window. ‘I have promised
to walk part of the way with him. But I think first we must have some
tea. No; he flatly refuses to be driven. We are going to walk.’

The two friends were left alone, face to face with a rather difficult
silence, only the least degree of nervousness apparent, so far as
Herbert was concerned, in that odd aloof sustained air of impersonality
that had so baffled his companion in their first queer talk together. ‘Your sister said just now, Herbert,’ blurted Lawford at last.