at...._"

6

There was snow, thick and long-lying, on the ground when he reached
Boveyhayne, and the _crunch-crunch_ of it under their feet, as Mary and
he walked home, gave him a feeling of pleasure, and the cold, bracing
air exhilarated him so that he laughed at things which would otherwise
barely have made him smile. The antics of Rachel's daughter, as related
to him by Mary, seemed extraordinarily entertaining, and when he drew
Mary's arm in his and pressed it tightly, he felt that there was nothing
in heaven or on earth more to be desired than the love of a woman and
the love of a child. He had a sense of age, of a passed boundary, that
made him feel much older than Mary. "Here I am, listening to her as she
talks gaily about a child's pranks, nodding my head and laughing, too
... and in a little while I shall tell her everything ... and then I
shall go ... and we will not laugh again together. I'm holding her arm
closely in mine, and presently I shall kiss her lips, and she will put
her arms about me with the careless intimacy of lovers ... and then I
shall tell her everything ... and she will kiss me no more ... and our
intimacy will shrivel up!..."

He wished to prolong his pleasure in this walk through the snow, and so
he took her back to the Manor by long roads and roundabout ways. They
did not climb up the old path over the cliff because that was so much
shorter than the hair-pin road.... "I must tell her soon," he said to
himself, "but before I tell her, I must feel the most of her love for
me!"

He listened to her, not for what she was saying, but for the sound of
her voice, and made short answers to her so that he might interrupt the
flow of her speech as little as possible. When he returned along this
road, he would come alone and for the last time, and so, that his memory
of her might be full, he would be no more than her auditor and watcher.
Just to have her by his side, her arm in his, and hear her ... that was
sufficient.

They walked through the village and when they came to Boveyhayne lane,
he said to her, "Isn't there a longer way, Mary!" and she laughed at
him, bantering him because of his sudden desire for exercise; but she
yielded to him, and they took the longer road that led them past the
Roman quarries to the fir tree, standing in isolation where the main
roads meet.

"Mary," he said, as they came in sight of the house, "I want to tell
you something ... something important!..."

"Y