I went toward them, and all the perspectives of my reconstructed universe altered as I did so.
I seemed to see these two for the first time; how fine they were, how graceful and human. It was as though I had never really looked at them before, and, indeed, always before I had beheld them through a mist of selfish passion. They had shared the universal darkness and dwarfing of the former time; they shared the universal exaltation of the new. Now suddenly Nettie, and the love of Nettie, a great passion for Nettie, lived again in me. This change which had enlarged men’s hearts had made no end to love. Indeed, it had enormously enlarged and glorified love. She stepped into the center of that dream of world reconstruction that filled my mind and took possession of it all. A little wisp of hair had blown across her cheek, her lips fell apart in that sweet smile of hers; her eyes were full of wonder, of a welcoming scrutiny, of an infinitely courageous friendliness.
I took her outstretched hand, and wonder overwhelmed me. “I wanted to kill you,” I said simply, trying to grasp that idea. It seemed now like stabbing the stars, or murdering the sunlight.
“Afterward we looked for you,” said Verrall; “and we could not find you. . . . We heard another shot.”
I turned my eyes to him, and Nettie’s hand fell from me. It was then I thought of how they had fallen together, and what it must have been to have awakened in that dawn with Nettie by one’s side. I had a vision of them as I had glimpsed them last amidst the thickening vapors, close together, hand in hand. The green hawks of the Change spread their darkling wings above their last stumbling paces. So they fell. And awoke—lovers together in a morning of Paradise. Who can tell how bright the sunshine was to them, how fair the flowers, how sweet the singing of the birds? . . .
This was the thought of my heart. But my lips were saying, “When I awoke I threw my pistol away.” Sheer blankness kept my thoughts silent for a little while; I said empty things. “I am very glad I did not kill you—that you are here, so fair and well. . . .”
“I am going away back to Clayton on the day after to-morrow,” I said, breaking away to explanations. “I have been writing shorthand here for Melmount, but that is almost over now. . . .”