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...."

"Yes, yes...."

"You said something about getting off there on a night when you left the
train with a girl who was coming home to the village--you know the
letter?" he broke off, "I think it was that letter that finally gave me
courage to come. Because in that I saw in you something new
and--understanding. Well, and I remembered about the draw. I always
meant to get off there, when I came."

"You always meant ... but then how did you make them stop?"

"I told the man I had to, and then he had to, too. There were four
others who got off and went across the tracks, but we are not obliged to
consider them."

"From that," I said, "I would think it _is_ you, if I didn't