else was still; but those leaves were quivering, quivering. I
stood on the sand; I could not go away. When it was quite dark, and the
stars had come, I crept out. Does it seem strange to you that it should
have made me so happy? It is because I cannot tell you how near I felt
to things that we cannot see but we always feel. Tonight has been a
wild, stormy night. I have been walking across the plain for hours in
the dark. I have liked the wind, because I have seemed forcing my way
through to you. I knew you were not here, but I would hear of you. When
I used to sit on the transport wagon half-sleeping, I used to start
awake because your hands were on me. In my lodgings, many nights I have
blown the light out, and sat in the dark, that I might see your face
start out more distinctly. Sometimes it was the little girl's face who
used to come to me behind the kopje when I minded sheep, and sit by me
in her blue pinafore; sometimes it was older. I love both. I am very
helpless; I shall never do anything; but you will work, and I will take
your work for mine. Sometimes such a sudden gladness seizes me when I
remember that somewhere in the world you are living and working. You are
my very own; nothing else is my own so. When I have finished I am going
to look at your room door--"

He wrote; and the wind, which had spent its fury, moaned round and round
the house, most like a tired child weary with crying.

Em woke up, and sat before the fire, rubbing her eyes, and listening, as
it sobbed about the gables, and wandered away over the long stone walls.

"How quiet it has grown now," she said, and sighed herself, partly
from weariness and partly from sympathy with the tired wind. He did not
answer her; he was lost in his letter.

She rose slowly after a time, and rested her hand on his shoulder.

"You have many letters to write," she said.

"No," he answered; "it is only one to Lyndall."

She turned away, and stood long before the fire looking into it. If you
have a deadly fruit to give, it will not grow sweeter by keeping.

"Waldo, dear," she said, putting her hand on his, "leave off writing."

He threw back the dark hair from his forehead and looked at her.

"It is no use writing any more," she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

She put her hand over the papers he had written.

"Waldo," she said, "Lyndall is dead."

Chapter 2.XII. Gregory's Womanhood.

Slowly over the flat came a cart. On the back seat sat Gregory,