e
over-blown roses, light pink roses, hung amongst them. I remember
dwelling on the strange lines the autumn had made in red on one of the
gold-green vine leaves, and watching one leaf of one of the over-blown
roses, expecting it to fall every minute; but as I gazed, and felt
disappointed that the rose leaf had not fallen yet, I felt my pain
suddenly shoot through me, and I remembered what I had lost; and then
came bitter, bitter dreams,--dreams which had once made me happy,--dreams
of the things I had hoped would be, of the things that would never be
now; they came between the fair vine leaves and rose blossoms, and that
which lay before the window; they came as before, perfect in colour and
form, sweet sounds and shapes. But now in every one was something
unutterably miserable; they would not go away, they put out the steady
glow of the golden haze, the sweet light of the sun through the vine
leaves, the soft leaning of the full blown roses. I wandered in them for
a long time; at last I felt a hand put me aside gently, for I was
standing at the head of--of the bed; then some one kissed my forehead,
and words were spoken--I know not what words. The bitter dreams left me
for the bitterer reality at last; for I had found him that morning lying
dead, only the morning after I had seen him when he had come back from
his long absence--I had found him lying dead, with his hands crossed
downwards, with his eyes closed, as though the angels had done that for
him; and now when I looked at him he still lay there, and Margaret knelt
by him with her face touching his: she was not quivering now, her lips
moved not at all as they had done just before; and so, suddenly those
words came to my mind which she had spoken when she kissed me, and which
at the time I had only heard with my outward hearing, for she had said,
"Walter, farewell, and Christ keep you; but for me, I must be with him,
for so I promised him last night that I would never leave him any more,
and God will let me go." And verily Margaret and Amyot did go, and left
me very lonely and sad.

It was just beneath the westernmost arch of the nave, there I carved
their tomb: I was a long time carving it; I did not think I should be so
long at first, and I said, "I shall die when I have finished carving it,"
thinking that would be a very short time. But so it happened after I had
carved those two whom I loved, lying with clasped hands like husband and
wife above their tom