nd started back. When I came to the Castle, I
walked along the island to the outer end, and looked up: there were her
pretty cream Valenciennes, put up by herself, waving inward before the
light lake-breeze at one open oriel; and I knew that she was in the
Castle, for I felt it: and always, always, when she was within, I knew,
for I felt her with me; and always when she was away, I knew, I felt,
for the air had a dreadful drought, and a barrenness, in it. And I
looked up for a time to see if she would come to the window, and then I
called, and she appeared. And I said to her: 'Come down here.'

* * * * *

Just here there is a little rock-path to the south, going down to the
water between rocks mixed with shrub-like little trees, three yards
long: a path, or a lane, one might call it, for at the lower end the
rocks and trees reach well over a tall man's head. There she had tied my
boat to a slender linden-trunk: and sadder now than Gethsemane that
familiar boat seemed to my eyes, for I knew very well that I should
never enter it more. I walked up and down the path, awaiting her: and
from the jacket-pocket in which lay the revolver I drew a box of Swedish
matches, from it took two matches, and broke off a bit from the plain
end of one; and the two I held between my left thumb and forefinger
joint, the phosphorus ends level and visible, the other ends invisible:
and I awaited her, pacing fast, and my brow was as stern as Azrael and
Rhadamanthus.

She came, very pale, poor thing, and flurried, breathing fast. And
'Leda,' I said, meeting her in the middle of the lane, and going
straight to the point, 'we are to part, as you guess--for ever, as you
guess--for I see very well by your face that you guess. I, too, am very
sorry, my little child, and heavy is my heart. To leave you ... alone
... in the world ... is--death for me. But it must, ah it must, be
done.'

Her face suddenly turned as sallow as the dead were, when the shroud was
already on, and the coffin had become a stale added piece of
room-furniture by the bed-side; but in recording that fact, I record
also this other: that, accompanying this mortal sallowness, which
painfully shewed up her poor freckles, was a steady smile, a little
turned-down: a smile of steady, of slightly disdainful--Confidence.

She did not say anything: so I went on.

'I have thought long,' said I, 'and I have made a plan--a plan which
cannot be effective w