Back, by another way, he turned. The sun Fired the yew-tops in the Roman woods. Lights in the valley twinkled one by one, The starlings whirled in dropping multitudes. Dusk fingered into one earth's many moods, Back to The Roughs he walked; he neared the brook; A lamp burned in the farm; he saw; his fingers shook.
He had to cross the brook, to cross a field, Where daffodils were thick when years were young. Then, were she there, his fortunes should be sealed. Down the mud trackway to the brook he swung; Then while the passion trembled on his tongue, Dim, by the dim bridge-stile, he seemed to see A figure standing mute; a woman--it was she.
She stood quite stilly, waiting for him there. She did not seem surprised; the meeting seemed Planned from all time by powers in the air To change their human fates; he even deemed That in another life this thing had gleamed, This meeting by the bridge. He said, "It's you." "Yes, I," she said, "who else? You must have known; you knew
"That I should come here to the brook to see, After your message." "You were out," he said. "Gone, and I did not know where you could be. Where were you, Mary, when the thing was laid?" "Old Mrs. Gale is dying, and I stayed Longer than usual, while I read the Word. You could have hardly gone." She paused, her bosom stirred.
"Mary, I sinned," he said. "Not that, dear, no," She said; "but, oh, you were unkind, unkind, Never to write a word and leave me so, But out of sight with you is out of mind." "Mary, I sinned," he said, "and I was blind. Oh, my beloved, are you Lion's wife?" "Belov'd sounds strange," she answered, "in my present life.
"But it is sweet to hear it, all the same. It is a language little heard by me Alone, in that man's keeping, with my shame. I never thought such miseries could be. I was so happy in you, Michael. He Came when I felt you changed from what I thought you. Even now it is not love, but jealousy that brought you."
"That is untrue," he said. "I am in hell. You are my heart's beloved, Mary, you. By God, I know your beauty now too well. We are each other's, flesh and soul, we two." "That was sweet knowledge once," she said; "we knew That truth of old. Now, in a strange man's bed, I read it in my soul, and find it written red."