I shall feel the shame of not
being good enough for Maurits. And when I come home--I do not
know how I shall be able to come home; how I can cross my father's
threshold after this. The whole street will be full of whispering
and gossip when I show myself. Every one will wonder what evil
thing I have done, to be so badly treated. Is it my fault that you
love me?" He answers with a sob in his throat: "Do not speak so,
little Downie! It is too soon to speak so."

He wanders there the whole night and towards midnight comes a
little darkness. He is in great trouble; the heavy, sultry air
seems to be still in terror of some crime which is to be committed
in the morning.

He tries to calm the night by saying aloud: "I shall not do it."

Then the most wonderful thing happens. The night is seized with a
trembling dread. It is no longer the little flakes which are
falling, but round about him rustle great and small wings. He hears
something flying but does not know whither.

They rush by him; they graze his cheek; they touch his clothes and
hands; and he understands what it is. The leaves are falling from
the trees; the flowers flee from their stalks; the wings fly away
from the butterflies; the song forsakes the birds.

And he understands that when the sun rises his garden will be a
waste. Empty, cold, and silent winter shall reign there; no play of
butterflies; no song of birds.

He remains until the light comes again, and he is almost astonished
when he sees the thick masses of leaves on the trees. "What is it,
then," he says, "which is laid waste if it was not the garden? Not
even a blade of grass is missing. It is I who must live in winter
and cold hereafter, not the garden. It is as if the mainspring of
life were gone. Ah, you old fool, this will pass like everything
else. It is too much ado about a little girl."

IV

How very improperly "it" behaved the morning they were to leave!
During the two days after the ball "it" had been rather something
inspiring, something exciting; but now when Downie is to leave,
when "it" realizes that the end has come, that "it" will never play
any part in her life, then it changes to a death thrust, to a
deathly coldness.

She feels as if she were dragging a body of stone down the stairs
to the breakfast-room. She stretches out a heavy, cold hand of
stone when she says good-morning; she speaks with a slow tongue of
stone; smiles with hard stone lips. It is a labor, a labor.