"Then is this to be good-bye?"
Again she signed a faint assent, and he made no effort to
touch her or draw nearer. "You understand that I sha'n't
come back?"
He was looking at her, and she tried to return his look, but
her eyes were blind with tears, and in dread of his seeing
them she got up and walked away. He did not follow her, and
she stood with her back to him, staring at a bowl of
carnations on a little table strewn with books. Her tears
magnified everything she looked at, and the streaked petals
of the carnations, their fringed edges and frail curled
stamens, pressed upon her, huge and vivid. She noticed
among the books a volume of verse he had sent her from
England, and tried to remember whether it was before or
after...
She felt that he was waiting for her to speak, and at last
she turned to him. "I shall see you to-morrow before you
go..."
He made no answer.
She moved toward the door and he held it open for her. She
saw his hand on the door, and his seal ring in its setting
of twisted silver; and the sense of the end of all things
came to her.
They walked down the drawing-rooms, between the shadowy
reflections of screens and cabinets, and mounted the stairs
side by side. At the end of the gallery, a lamp brought out
turbid gleams in the smoky battle-piece above it.
On the landing Darrow stopped; his room was the nearest to
the stairs.
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