The Third Window

was chill, and as they had walked they had felt the wind; but, sunken in this little, shel

ed that they had gone far enough for his strength; a little too far, he was aware, as they sank down on the grass, and he was sorry, for he

sped round her knees. "I want to tell you everything. In the first place, let me be quite

he as

ve happened had I not been," she defined for

r

xoneration. You a

ul; and I don't think

than helped her. "That is what it all comes back to, for me,

u wouldn't be in love with

ured, while he saw the slow flush in her cheek. "Th

ear girl. I know how it w

I'm only in love with you because he isn't here any longer. If he were here, I couldn't lov

ou mean?" the y

perhaps came of his being tired. Or perhaps it came from the fact that the soft edges and tips of Antonia's averted profile, soft yet so clear, shadowed yet so pale, against the sky, were more relevant t

ality; the temporal and the eternal consciousness;-the old words chimed in his brain. Then came a swift memory of Antonia and himself dancing the tango in London, and then the memory of the dead face of a little French poilu he had come upon one evening in France, by the roadside, a face sweet and chi

verie and his eyes were brought back

olm doesn't exist any longer; or to believe him immortal and to lose me?" He had not meant to be cruel; he was placing the dilemma befo

I must despise myself?" she sa

ou want, what you really want, is me

not! I want you; but if he were here I'd

urse, because he has been far more in your life than I have;

ut that would pass when I had told him everything a

turns from the dead, he must expect to find that the world has gone on without him, mustn't he? After all,

and an ironic eye for reality, in himself and in others. And now, entangled in his own passion and in the webs of her dreams and difficulties, he recognized something perfidious in his nature, something that, whil

more merely grateful to you for loving any one so useless? I'll help you in any way I can, Tony. What

m the issue she put before him

id not, for all her attempt at clearness, see

and to understand. I'll go by what you say. So th

nal gain, to say, "I don't know; I really don't know what I believe, darling; but it doesn't seem to me at all likely." But now, leaning over her, still looking at her

Malcolm. Was it with this face he was welcomed back among the realities of her world? She continued to look at him in silence, taking it all in, with a trust, an acceptance, pitiful indeed; and suddenly, seeing in her despair his full justificat

s around his neck and she clung

. That's what I've come to know. I can't explain how. It came to me, one night, in a sort of inner vision, Tony, after dreadful things had happened-over there, you know. But he is

passionately shy, never in his life could he have believed himself capable of uttering such words. It was doing himself a violence to utter them, yet sweet to do himself the

him, his child and not his lover, it came to him that he h

d. "He knows and feels an

re all together, your love and his and

nt-not him? I don't know what you mean, Bevis. How

g at once. I don't believe he suffers. Our love may be happiness to him." But now he was using mere

e, here, suffer terribly. They may go on suffering terribly when the

eling, rather. I don't feel it as you do, and the reason for that is, I

ecause his body was becoming very tired. And her fear,

e waiting for me; wanting me? Hasn't love like that something special and unsharable? Oh, you know it has. It must be two; it can't be three. How could I go to him, with

that I don't feel it so. I can only say that if I felt it so I'd not want to marry you; I couldn't want you if I felt it so. And even if you yourself felt him so near and real that my love could only hurt you

e had not been so tired to begin with, perhaps he might have found something more. But he was now horribly tired and his artificial leg began to pull at him, and though he sat very still

kissed it without speaking, and he saw that s

the heather. Wyndwards stood high and they had to climb a little.

faithful. If I'd loved him enough, if I'd loved him as he sho

said the

grown fond of you and fallen in love-what I say to myself is that of course I should have fought against the feeling and avoided seeing you, and when he came b

And you'd have fallen out of love with m

that now? Can't I do that now?" She stopped in the

n his voice; "it isn't like that now. As I've said, the

mortal,

eve, im

ay, when I find him again

dryness was in his voice. "He knows all a

e knows and has

ve!" Bevis could not rep

are u

tormenting. Don't let us talk about it any

tormenting. Isn't it

laughed now, "if you c

can't find it yet. Because you don't feel as I do; and you may be right and I wrong. You do believe

en she no longer found any help in him, sought help for herself in her own misconcep

t believe, either, that everything is cha

that people there don't feel in the wa

love sometimes." And, glancing up at the house, as she had laid her hand on his arm, he

rom glancing round at the house, in an upp

She must know why you are here. She m

ere's no point in her thinking you faithl

, "and taunt me, when I need help mos

d. Only worn out. What I'd like"-and putting his hand within her arm, indifferent to the possible spectator, he glanced round at her with a smile half melancholy and half whimsica