and at last we came to the landing, and moored the little boat and walked up the winding path to the hotel. the dull pain of separation was already upon us.
i think we had forgotten miss summersley satchel altogether. but she appeared as we sat down to tea at that same table at which we had breakfasted, and joined us as a matter of course. conceivably she found the two animated friends of the morning had become rather taciturn. indeed there came a lapse of silence so portentous that i roused myself to effort and told her, all over again, as i realized afterwards, the difficulties that had benighted me upon titlis. then miss satchel regaled mary with some particulars of the various comings and goings of the hotel. i became anxious to end this tension and went into the inn to pay my bill and get my knapsack. when i came out mary stood up.
"i'll come just a little way with you, stephen," she said, and i could have fancied the glasses of the companion flashed to hear the surname of the morning reappear a christian name in the afternoon....
"is that woman behind us safe?" i asked, breaking the silence as we went up the mountain-side.
mary looked over her shoulder for a contemplative second.
"she's always been—discretion itself."
we thought no more of miss satchel.
"this parting," said mary, "is the worst of the price we have to pay.... now it comes to the end there seem a thousand things one hasn't said...."
and presently she came back to that. "we shan't remember this so much perhaps. it was there we met, over there in the sunlight—among those rocks. i suppose—perhaps—we managed to say something...."
as the ascent grew steeper it became clear that if i was to reach the melch see inn by nightfall, our moment for parting had come. and with a "well," and a white-lipped smile and a glance at the argus-eyed hotel, she held out her hand to me. "i shall live on this, brother stephen," she said, "for years."
"i too," i answered....
it was wonderful to stand and face her there, and see her real and living with the warm sunlight on her, and her face one glowing tenderness. we clasped hands; all the warm life of our hands met and clung and parted.
i went on alone up the winding path,—it zigzags up the mountain-side in full sight of the hotel for the better part of an hour—climbing steadily higher and looking back and looking back until she was just a little strip of white—that halted and seemed to wave to me. i waved back and found myself weeping. "you fool!" i said to myself, "go on"; and it was by an effort that i kept on my way instead of running back to her again. presently the curvature of the slope came up between us and hid her altogether, hid the hotel, hid the lakes and the cliffs....
it seemed to me that i could not possibly see her any more. it was as if i knew that sun had set for ever.
