How clearly he could conjure up the scene
that they were enjoying with such keen relish!
Only two days before, he had walked among the same tents,
staring at horses and gay trappings and painted Amazons
as one who noted nothing; yet the agony of the thing he now
saw at last lit up all the rest as with a lightning flash,
and burned the scene forever on his brain and heart.
It was at Wareham, too,--Wareham, where she had promised
to be his wife, where she had married him only a year before.
How well he remembered the night! They left the parsonage;
they had ten miles to drive in the moonlight before reaching
their stopping-place,--ten miles of such joy as only a man could know,
he thought, who had had the warm fruit of life hanging within
full vision, but just out of reach,--just above his longing lips;
and then, in an unlooked-for, gracious moment, his!
He could swear she had loved him that night, if never again.
But this picture passed away, and he saw that maddening circle
with the caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous
creak of the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders.
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