Madge’s eyes moved round from the hills and they met Baruch’s. No
syllable was uttered, but swiftest messages passed, question and answer.
There was no hesitation on his part now, no doubt, the woman and the
moment had come. The last question was put, the final answer was given;
he took her hand in his and came closer to her.
‘Stop!’ she whispered, ‘do you know my history?’
He did not reply, but fell upon her neck. This was the goal to which
both had been journeying all these years, although with much weary
mistaking of roads; this was what from the beginning was designed for
both! Happy Madge! happy Baruch! There are some so closely akin that
the meaning of each may be said to lie in the other, who do not approach
till it is too late. They travel towards one another, but are waylaid
and detained, and just as they are within greeting, one of them drops and
dies.
They left the tree and went back to the Marshalls, and then down the hill
to Mrs Caffyn and Clara. Clara was much better for her rest, and early
in the evening the whole party returned to Letherhead, Clara and Mrs
Caffyn going on to Great Oakhurst. Madge kept close to her sister till
they separated, and the two men walked together. On Whitmonday morning
the Letherhead people came over to Great Oakhurst. They had to go back
to London in the afternoon, but Mrs Caffyn and Clara were to stay till
Tuesday, as they stood a better chance of securing places by the coach on
that day. Mrs Caffyn had as much to show them as if the village had been
the Tower of London. The wonder of wonders, however, was a big house,
where she was well known, and its hot-houses. Madge wanted to speak to
Clara, but it was difficult to find a private opportunity. When they
were in the garden, however, she managed to take Clara unobserved down
one of the twisted paths, under pretence of admiring an ancient mulberry
tree.
‘Clara,’ she said, ‘I want a word with you. Baruch Cohen loves me.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Without a shadow of a doubt?’
‘Without a shadow of a doubt.’
Clara put her arm round her sister, kissed her tenderly and said,—
‘Then I am perfectly happy.’
‘Did you suspect it?’
‘I knew it.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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