Blown upon by all the winds of heaven, with whisperings at every crack and meanings in its loosened timbers, "the barn" was André's retreat. Far from finding it dismal, he had only to light a fire in the cracked stove and whip out his fiddle; and henceforth, it became a cheerful and friendly abode. He was too close to nature to be rendered unhappy by mere loneliness. The booming of the sea against the cliffs and the sighing of the wind in the vastnesses of the sedgegrass, but lit in him a fiercer gayety.
Up to this time André had resembled one of those unobtrusive plants which encumber the highway, but which are apt to escape notice until the flowering season. He was as handsome as an animal, a child or any other natural thing, and of the primitive soul at the bottom of him, his large and rolling eye revealed little. But the hour comes when the humble flower arrests our attention, if only for the fraction of a moment, by opening a corolla of exquisite perfection.
It was on a day in late autumn after the first snow had vanished from the earth, leaving it wistful and half-chastened, that Rachel sought out André. It was to be expected that her schoolfellow would feel sharp regret at her news, and for this reason she had delayed enlightening him until the last moment. They stood some distance from "the barn" in the pale sunlight and as she began to speak, he looked straight into her eyes with a kind of uncomprehending terror. Scarcely had she finished when he sank to the ground as if felled by a blow.
"Say you didn't mean it," he moaned, and at her dress she felt his clinging hands while his forehead rested hot against her feet.
She lifted his head and saw his mouth twisting like a child's, while from his eyes poured two steady streams of tears.
"Why André!" she cried, and with a movement of almost maternal compassion, she put her arms about him. Thus drawn against the sky, the young pair vaguely suggested the group of Niobe and her child.
"Say you won't leave me," he moaned, "say we'll be married and you'll never, never leave me."
Softly she stroked his hair while gazing straight before her. Through a sort of prescience she knew that this humble and suppliant love was sweeter and more fathomless than anything that would come to her again.