'How far away it sounds already; ours are
sweet bugles--the sweetest bugles to my ear in the wide world. Yes,
dreaming. I said I had but one treasure left,' he continued, with a
fierce sort of tenderness that was peculiar to him: 'and I did not mean
to tell you, but I will. Look at that, Miss Lily, 'tis the little rose
you left on your harpsichord this morning. I stole it: 'tis mine; and
Richard Devereux would die rather than lose it to another.'
So then, after all, he had been at the Elms; and she had wronged him.
'Yes, dreaming,' he continued, in his old manner; 'and 'tis time I were
awake, awake and on the march.'
'You are then really going?' she said, so that no one would have guessed
how strangely she felt at that moment.
'Yes, really going,' he said, quite in his own way; 'Over the hills and
far away; and so, I know, you'll first wish your old friend God speed.'
'I do, indeed.'
'And then you'll shake hands, Miss Lily, as in old times.'
And out came the frank little hand, and he looked on it, with a darkling
smile, as it lay in his own sinewy but slender grasp; and she said with
a smile--'Good-bye.
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