‘I cannot say I sympathise with him,’ cried Mary, woman-like. ‘To be able to do, and not to do, that is what I cannot understand. But you have not hid your talent in a napkin, Laurie. I wish you had a better opinion of yourself.’ Upon which Laurie laughed, and drew her hand through his arm, and the two strayed together, silent, down under the shadow of the trees towards the opening which looked on the river. The moon creeping higher every moment, began to thread through the bewildering maze of branches with lines and links of silver; and there was always that one brilliant spot in the midst of the river, far below them, shining like burnished silver, scarcely dimpling under the moonbeams, which seemed to swell as well as glorify the rather scanty water. Their hearts were full of wistfulness and dreams. The world lay all as dark before them as those rustling, breathing woods, with, for one, a brightness in the future which might or might not,--most probably should not,--ever be attained; and for the other, only some fanciful, silvery thread twining through the sombre life. They paused, arm-in-arm, by that beech-tree at the corner where Ben and Mary had paused when he was last at home, and where he had shot that arrow at her,--as she said to herself,--of which she could still feel the point. But Laurie was very different from Ben. No spark of emotion went from one soul to the other as they stood so close and so kindly together. They were the parallel lines that never meet,--each thinking their own thoughts, each with a sigh that was not all pain, contemplating the well-known road behind them, the invisible path before;--and all the world around lying dark and light, stirring softly, breathing softly, in the long speechless vigil which we call night.