She was looking away from him, gripping his hand, staring blindly into the darkness. She seemed not to be speaking to him. He did not answer. Her hand relaxed its grip upon his, and she said, drying her tears, “I despise myself....” “For crying?” he asked. “No—for what we’ve done.” He thought he knew what she meant. “For—playing at marriage?” “Yes,” she said strangely, “playing at marriage....” He had a moment of clairvoyance, a moment in which his mind saw into the one same realm of memory with hers.... He saw them, beside another camp-fire, talking.... “_Not afraid_,” he repeated aloud the words she had said to him then, “_not afraid of life or of any of the beautiful things life may bring us...._” “Felix!” she cried out. “Don’t!” He was seeing another picture, of themselves walking in a park under great trees that lifted their shivering glooms to the sky. “Everything,” she had said, “is all right now.” What mockery! And he felt, again, forces that he did not understand hurling themselves on his heart crushing and stunning it.... “We were afraid of life,” he said. “We were cowards. Despise me, too.” “Felix!” she cried, “you did care!... I never knew!” 2 They looked into the dying embers of the fire. His mind, as by a shadowy wing, was touched with a faint regret ... for what?... for an old dream, beautiful in its way—a dream of freedom; but a dream only—and worthy only the farewell tribute of a faint and shadowy regret. “What shall we do?” she whispered. “Let’s build our house, Rose-Ann. Will you?” “Yes.” THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ In chapter XVII, the sections are numbered 1, 2, 4. There is no 3, and no obvious place to insert another section number. Section 4 on page 132 was renumbered to 3. ○ Page 235, the third and fourth lines were swapped. ○ Page 240, the section number 4 was corrected to 5. ○ Page 289, there is a page break after section 2 and the following section is also numbered 2. The page break was deleted and the following two sections renumbered. ○ Page 295, the section number 2 was corrected to 3. ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Briary Bush, by Floyd Dell