And yet, beneath the veil of sorrow showed a warm red glow--the great secret that was between them. It was as if their eyes were opened, and they saw each other truly for the first time--no longer a youth and a maiden, but two human creatures thrilled with sorrow and joy in the pale dawn.
"Can you ever forgive me?" he asked, his voice trembling.
"Forgive...?" echoed the girl, and threw her arms round his neck.
"And you will not think of me with bitterness?" he asked again.
"How could I ever think of you with bitterness--you who have been everything to me? But why must you go away now?"
"Ay, why must we say good-bye now?" said he, with a sigh, as if hardly knowing what he said.
"If you only knew how I shall miss you...."
"And if _you_ knew.... O Heaven! But what can I do?"
"Don"t be unhappy for my sake; I know you can do nothing to change it.
And how can I ask more of you, after all you have given me? If only I could see you again some time; only once, once even after many years--if I only could...."
"Perhaps I may come one day--just to see you...."
"Come, come! I shall wait for you week after week."
Slowly he drew out his watch, looked at it, and showed it to the girl.
"Yes, you must go now. But how can I ever let you go?"
"How can I ever go? Oh, if only it were always night, and day never to come!"
"Yes--the last, long night--and after that the Judgment. I should not fear it now. Only a minute--only a minute more. One more look--there--and now I can never forget."
"Pansy, Pansy," he murmured tenderly. But his breast heaved with distress--it was as if the latch had been torn from the door, leaving it open to all who cared. "One thing you must promise me--after this...." His voice was like that of a drowning man. "Never to care for any other but the one you choose some day, for life."
"How should I ever care for any other?" said the girl wonderingly.
"And even then I shall love you just the same--even then."
"No, no, no! It would be worse than all. When you choose for life you must give all your love."
"No need to tell me that," said the girl in a low voice that thrilled him with pleasure and yet heightened his fears.
"Promise me! You don"t know why I ask you, why I beg of you to promise that. It is not for my own sake," he urged.
"I promised you that long ago--the first time we ever met," said the girl, and cowered close to him.
They drew apart, and stood up.
Holding him by the hand, she followed him to the door. Then flinging her arms about his neck, she clung to him as if she would never let him go. He took her in his arms, himself on the point of swooning; he felt her hair wet with tears against his cheek, and their lips met.
The girl"s head was bent back, looking, not into his eyes as before, but upward. And he saw how the look in her eyes changed, first to ineffable tenderness, then to pious prayer--until it seemed freed from all earth, gazing at some blessed vision afar off. As long as she stood thus he could not move a limb. Then her eyelids quivered, closed--and she drew her lips away.
He looked at them, saw a white, bloodless line--and he felt in that moment as if some ineradicable, eternal seal had been pressed upon his own.
"I can"t leave you like this!" he cried desperately. "Look! To-night we shall be at Kirveskallio--I can come from there. And I will come every night as long as we are within reach."
The girl"s face lit with a pale gleam as of autumn sunlight, but she said no word. Only looked at him strangely, as he had never seen her look before--and stood there, gazing at him still, as he pa.s.sed out.
ROWAN
"Rowan--do you know why I call you so?" he asked, holding the girl"s hand clasped in his.
"It must have been because I blushed so when you spoke to me first,"
she answered shyly.
"No, no! Guess again."
"I can"t guess, I"m sure. I never thought why it was--only that it was a pretty name, and nice of you to call me so."
"Did you think I should give you an ugly name?" said the young man, with a laugh. "But there"s much in that name, if you only knew."
"Perhaps I know." She looked at him trustingly as she spoke.
"Not altogether. But never mind--I"ll tell you some of it, though.
See, this last spring was all so wonderful to me, somehow, and I was happy just to be alive. But then came the summer, and autumn: the gra.s.s began to wither, and the leaves turned yellow, and it made my heart ache to see."
"You weren"t happy last summer?" she asked tenderly.
"No. You see, I could not forget the spring that had been so wonderful, and I was longing for it all the time. If I"d stayed in the same place, then perhaps.... But I"m a wanderer, once and for all...."
"Why do you never stay anywhere?"
""Tis my nature, I suppose," he answered, staring before him.
"And where were you--that time?" asked the girl timidly, watching his face.
"Oh, a long way off. Don"t ask of that. I"m not thinking of that spring now any more. It was only to tell you--who it was showed me that the autumn can be lovely, too."
"Did someone show you that?"
"Yes, someone showed me--or, rather, I saw it the moment I set eyes on her."
He took the girl"s hands in his, and looked into her eyes.
"It was a little cl.u.s.ter of rowan berries. When I saw you, you were like a young red rowan on the hillside. The birch was fading already, the ash stood solemn and dull, but you were there with the red berries, calling to me--no, not calling, but I saw you. And I stood and looked as if a miracle had come, and said to myself, should I speak to her, or just go by?"