Francesco Scaglione

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I. He had a mortal dislike, poor Stransom, to lean anniversaries, and he disliked them still more when they made a pretence of a figure.

II. He had this year, on the eve of his anniversary, as it happened, an emotion not unconnected with the range of feeling.

III. The next day, in the afternoon, in the great grey suburb, he felt that his long walk had tired him.

IV. Every year, the day he walked back from the great graveyard, he went to church as he had done the day his idea was born.

V. They fell at last into the way of walking together almost every time they met, though, for a long time, they never met anywhere save at church.

VI. She was always in mourning, yet the day he came back from the longest absence he had yet made her appearance immediately told him she had lately had a bereavement.

VII. He learned in that instant two things: one of them was that even in so long a time she had gathered no knowledge of his great intimacy and his great quarrel; the other was that in spite of this ignorance, strangely enough, she supplied on the spot a reason for his confusion.

VIII. He had ruthlessly abandoned her—that, of course, was what he had done.

IX. And yet this was no solution, especially after he had talked again to his friend of all it had been his plan that she should finally do for him.

[...]

"Then you //could// come? God sent you!" he murmured with a
happy smile.\\
"You're very ill–you shouldn't be here," she urged in anxious
reply.\\
"God sent me too, I think. I was ill when I came, but the
sight of you does wonders." He held her hands, and they
steadied and quickened him. "I've something to tell you."\\
"Don't tell me!" she tenderly pleaded; "let me tell you.
This afternoon, by a miracle, the sweetest of miracles, the
sense of our difference left me. I was out–I was near,
thinking, wandering alone, when, on the spot, something
changed in my heart. It's my confession–there it is. To come
back, to come back on the instant–the idea gave my wings. It
was as if I suddenly saw something–as if it all became
possible. I could come for what you yourself came for: that
was enough. So here I am. It's not for my own–that's over.
But I'm here for //them//." And breathless, infinitely
relieved by her low, precipitate explanation, she looked
with eyes that reflected all its splendour at the
magnificence of their altar.\\
"They're here for you," Stransom said, "they're present
tonight as they've never been. They speak for you–don't you
see?–in a passion of light–they sing out like a choir of
angels. Don't you hear what they say?–they offer the very
thing you asked of me."\\
"Don't talk of it–don't think of it; forget it!" She spoke
in hushed supplication, and while the apprehension deepened
in her eyes she disengaged one of her hands and passed an
arm round him, to support him better, to help him to sink
into a seat.\\
He let himself go, resting on her; he dropped upon the
bench, and she fell on her knees beside him with his arm on
her soulder. So he remained an instant, staring up at his
shrine. "They say there's a gap in the array–they say it's
not full, complete. Just one more," he went on,
softly–"isn't that what you wanted? Yes, one more, one
more."\\
"Ah, no more–no more!" she wailed, as if with a quick, new
horror of it, under her breath.\\
"Yes, one more," he repeated, simply; "just one!" And with
this his head dropped on her shoulder; she felt that in his
weakness he had fainted. But alone with him in the dusky
church a great dread was on her of what might still happen,
for his face had the whiteness of death.