nd her words as she spoke them sounded to Owen passionate, tender,
and melancholy as the nightingale; and his words, too, seemed to
partake of the same passionate melancholy.

"Forgetfulness of you."

"So you wished to forget me? I am sorry."

"Sorry that I haven't forgotten you? That, Evelyn, is impossible for
me to believe; it isn't human to wish ourselves forgotten."

"No, Owen, I don't wish you to forget me, I am glad you have not; but
I am sorry there was any need for you to seek forgetfulness."

"And is there any need?"

"Yes, for the Evelyn you loved died years ago."

"Oh, Evelyn, don't say that; she is not dead?"

"Perhaps not altogether, a trace here and there, a slight flavour,
but not a woman who could bring you happiness as you understand
happiness, Owen."

"All the happiness I ever had I owe to you. How can I thank you for
those ten years?"

"But you paid for them with a great deal of sorrow."

"Had it not been for you, Evelyn, I shouldn't have lived at all. How
often have I told you that? I have seen all the world, and yet I have
only seen one thing in the world--you."

"Owen, you mustn't speak to me like that."

"While that bird is singing you are afraid to listen to me! How
passionately it sings, but how little it feels compared with what I
am feeling. Why did you say that the Evelyn of old is dead?"

"Well, Owen, don't you know that we are always dying, always
changing. You are in love, not with me, but with your memory of me."

"A great deal of my love is memory, of course, still--"

Words again seemed vain, foolish, even sacrilegious, so little could
he convey to her of what he believed to be the truth, and they walked
in silence through the fragrance of the soft night, thinking of the
colour of the sky, in which the sunset was not yet quite dead. His
memory of his love of this woman long ago in Dulwich, in Paris, and
in all the cities and scenes they had visited together, raised him
above himself; and he felt that her soul mingled with his in an
ecstatic sadness beyond words, but which the nightingale sang
clearly; the stars, too, sang it clearly; and they stood mute in the
midst of the immortal symphony about them. "Evelyn, I love you. How
wonderful our lives have been!" But what use to break the music,
audible and inaudible, with such weak words? The villagers under the
hill could speak as well; the bird in the bush and the stars above it
were speaking for him; and he was conten