He draws her shawl, which has slipped to the ground, close round her, and mutely, gloomily, they stand listening to the murmuring of the sympathetic stream. "I always think of this spot as the dearest on earth," he says, after a pause. "Here I picture you to myself with your hands full of forget-me-nots. I have a large bunch of them yet, the same you gathered; faded, it is true, to others, but never so to me. They will always be as fresh in my eyes as on the evening I took them from you. 'My sweet love's flowers.' Darling, darling," pressing her to his heart in a very agony of regret, "when shall we two stand here again together?" "Never," she whispers back, in a prophetic tone, and with a trembling, sobbing sigh more sad than any tears. "Give me something to remember you by,--something to remind me of to-night." "Shall you need it?" asks she, and then raising her hands she loosens all her pretty hair, letting it fall in a bright shower around her. "You shall have one little lock all to yourself," she says. "Choose, and cut it where you will." Tenderly he selects a shining tress,--a very small one, so loath is he, even for his own benefit, to lessen the glory of her hair,--and, severing it, consigns it to the back case of his watch. "That is a good place to keep it," she says, with an upward glance that permits him to see the love that lives for him in her dewy eyes. "At least every night when you wind your watch you must think of me." "I shall think of you morning, noon, and night, for that matter." "And I,--when shall I think of you? And yet of what avail?" cries she, in despair; "all our thought will be of no use. It will not bring us together. We must be always separate,--always apart. Not all our longing will bring us one day nearer to each other. Our lives are broken asunder." "Do not let us waste our last moments talking folly," replies he, calmly; "nothing earthly shall separate us." "Yet time, they say, kills all things. It may perhaps--kill--even your love." "You wrong me, Molly, in even supposing it. 'They sin, who tell us love can die,'" quotes he, softly, in a tender, solemn tone. "My love for you is deathless. Beloved, be assured of this, were we two to live until old age crept on us, I should still carry to my grave my love for you." He is so earnest that in spite of herself a little unacknowledged comfort comes into her heart. She feels it is no flimsy passion of an hour he is giving her, but a true affection that will endure forever. "How changed you are!" he says presently; "you, who used to be so self-reliant, have now lost all your courage. Try to be brave, Molly, for both our sakes. And--as I must soon go--tell me, what is your parting injunction to me?" "The kindest thing I can say to you is--forget me." "Then say something unkind. Do you imagine I shall take two such hateful words as a farewell?" "Then don't forget me; be _sure_ you don't," cries she, bursting into tears.