Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/362

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
320
A Resurrection

the lawn she seemed to move in her cerements, as she had moved five years ago, but now with a saddened step and downcast eyes. She paused by her rose-bush; she lingered in reluctance on her way. Opening the window he followed, in the conscious pursuit of his melancholy fancy.

There, below the hollies, she might now be preceding him, as she had walked a thousand times in life. He entered the copse, and could imagine that she stopped and beckoned to him. His eyes fell upon the arbour. Surely it was thither that she would have him go, to commune there together as they had done so many summer evenings long ago. As he approached the summer-house a flash of wonder turned his heart to stone and then set it beating hard. From the high regions of his soaring fancy he fell suddenly to fact. He sprang forward with a cry of bewilderment; for Dorothea's face, white and immobile, peered through the dim and grimy panes at him. He pushed aside the ivy, trembling, and stood. staring through the entrance. . . . Was it Dorothea's? . . .

Upon that new grave he might now rear a second temple to the dead, and from her quiet place among the shadows she too might now steal forth to revisit his melancholy dreams.

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.