The Choir Invisible

He bowed his head: the only answer he could make.

It was getting late. The sun at this moment passed behind the western

tree-tops. It was the old customary signal for him to go. They suddenly

looked at each other in that shadow.

"I shall always think of you for your last words to me," he said in a thick

voice, rising.

"Some day you will find the woman who will be a candle," she replied sadly,

rising also. Then with her lips trembling, she added piteously: "Oh, if you ever marry, don't make the mistake of treating the woman as an

ideal Treat her in every way as a human being exactly like yourself! With

the same weakness, the same strug-les, the same temptations! And as you have

some mercy on yourself despite your faults, have some mercy on her despite

hers."

"Must I ever think of you as having been weak and tempted as I have been?"

he cried, the guilty blood rushing into his face in the old struggle to tell

her everything.

"Oh, as for me--what do you know of me!" she cried, laughing. And then more

quickly:

"I have read your face! What do you read in mine?"

He looked long into it:

"All that I have most wished to see in the face of any woman--except one

thing!"

"What is that? But don't tell me!"

She turned away toward the garden gate. In silence they passed out--walking

toward the edge of the clearing. Half-way she paused. He lifted his hat and

held out his hand. She laid hers in it and they gave each other the long

clinging grasp of affection."Always be a good man," she said, tightening her

grasp and turning her face away.

As he was hurrying off, she called to him in a voice full of emotion: "Come back!"

He wheeled and walked towards her blindly.

She scanned his face, feature by feature.

"Take off your hat!" she said with a tremulous little laugh. He did so and

she looked at his forehead and his hair.

"Go now, dear friend!" she said calmly but quickly.