He knew she understood what he
could not say.
"I'll work," he said, concisely. They stood side by side for a
moment. Then he said, with a motion of his head, "I won't come
back to THEM. Do you mind? Going back alone?"
She took ten seconds to think. "No." she said, and held out her
hand, biting her nether lip. "GOOD-BYE," she whispered.
He turned, with a white face, looked into her eyes, took her hand
limply, and then with a sudden impulse, lifted it to his lips.
She would have snatched it away, but his grip tightened to her
movement. She felt the touch of his lips, and then he had dropped
her fingers and turned from her and was striding down the slope.
A dozen paces away his foot turned in the lip of a rabbit hole,
and he stumbled forward and almost fell. He recovered his balance
and went on, not looking back. He never once looked back. She
stared at his receding figure until it was small and far below
her, and then, the tears running over her eyelids now, turned
slowly, and walked with her hands gripped hard together behind
her, towards Stoney Cross again.
"I did not know," she whispered to herself. "I did not
understand. Even now--No, I do not understand."
THE ENVOY
XLI
So the story ends, dear Reader. Mr. Hoopdriver, sprawling down
there among the bracken, must sprawl without our prying, I think,
or listening to what chances to his breathing. And of what came
of it all, of the six years and afterwards, this is no place to
tell.
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