t was
the woman at last.

I turned my face farther from her, and we stood in silence.

"I have suffered enough, Adam," she pleaded.

I answered quietly, doggedly, for there was nothing left in me to
appeal to:

"I am glad we can part kindly. . . . Neither of us may care much
for the kindness now, but we will not be sorry hereafter. . . .
The quarrels, the mistakes, the right and the wrong of our lives,
the misunderstandings--they are so strange, so pitiful, so full of
pain, and come so soon to nothing." And I lifted my hat, and took
the path towards my house.

There was a point ahead where it divided, the other branch leading
towards the little private gate through which Georgiana had come.
Just before reaching the porch I looked that way, with the idea
that I should see Georgiana's white figure moving across the lawn;
but I discovered that she was following me. Mounting my door-steps,
I turned. She had paused on the threshold. I waited. At length
she said, in a voice low and sorrowful:

"And you are not going to forgive me, Adam?"

"I _do_ forgive you!" The silence fell and lasted. I no longer
saw her face. At last her despairing voice barely reached me again:

"And--is--_that_--all?"

I had no answer to make, and sternly waited for her to go.

A moment longer she lingered, then turned slowly away; and I watched
her figure growing fainter and fainter till it was lost. I sprang
after her; my voice rang out hollow, and broke with terror and pain
and longing:

"Georgiana! Georgiana!"

"Oh, Adam, _Adam_!" I heard her cry, with low, piercing tenderness,
as she ran back to me through the darkness.

When we separated we lighted fresh candles and set them in our
windows, to burn a pure pathway of flame across the intervening
void. Henceforth we are like poor little foolish children, so
sick and lonesome in the night without one another. Happy, happy
night to come when one short candle will do for us both!

. . . Ah, but the long, long silence of the trees! . . .

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A KENTUCKY CARDINAL***

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