The swallows skimmed; a tinkling of sheep-bells
was heard; the stubble and the moor beyond the fields lay in gold, in
sunken green and violet; the hilltops met the sky in a line long,
clean, remote, and still. Elspeth spoke.
"I am going now, back home. Let's say good-by here, each wishing the
other some good in, or maybe out of, this carefu' world!"
"You, also, are unhappy. Why?"
"I am not! Do I seem so? I am sorry for unhappiness--that is all! Of
course we grow older," said Elspeth, "older and wiser. But you nor no
one must think that I am unhappy! For I am not." She put out her hands
to him. "Let us say good-by!"
"Is it so? Is it so?"
"Never make doubt of that! I want you to see that it is clean
snapped--clean gone!"
She gave him her hands. They lay in his grasp untrembling, filled with
a gathered strength. He wrung them, bowed his head upon them, let them
go. They fell at her sides; then she raised them, drew the scarf over
her head and, holding it as before, turned and went away up the path
between the yellow stubble and the wall. She walked quickly, dark
clad; she was gone like a bird into a wood, like a branch of autumn
leaves when the sea fog rolls in.
The laird of Glenfernie turned to his ancient house on the craggy
hill.... That night he made him a fire in his old loved room in the
keep.
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