Am I quite sure that he is still close to me? I tighten my hand in his. The true, regular pulse at his wrist assures me all is well and down here everything is fair and _true_. The garden and the leaves, the multiplying lights of the town, the gloaming are all real.
The air is stirring and freshening up. Let us walk. Straight ahead of us as far as the last terrace with its ornamental balustrade; then we will follow the Broad Walk at the entrance of the garden.
He takes my arm gently. I do not dare to lean on it, though the weight of his presence bears me to the ground. I feel I am alone in upholding his life. Who will tell him, who will ever tell him the whole drama that this means? Will he ever know how I see him, how he lives for me? Other people and he himself see his huge figure, always a little bowed as if he never dared to be altogether tall, the steel of his eyes, and the slope of his forehead, which every shadow exaggerates, and his gaze bemired in clouds. They may see his simplicity and transparent kindliness; but at this they stop.
I am caught in what is inexpressible in him. I assume all the questions a man may put to himself without being able to solve them, all the vague poignant evils. And when he appears, I feel that a word has been fashioned to express everything, but not a single word to express his face. It is too outside of everything, too mysterious, perhaps too like my own.
We are at the Broad Walk, a solemn pile in which the trees go two by two, close together, erect--a cathedral. A chilly silence lays a sheet on your shoulders, the nave boldly thrusts its black pillars upwards, and the branches topping the vault wed in the sky.
In spite of yourself you say something in a very low voice. "Up there, that red glow as through a stained-glass window."
"Tell me you love me ... tell me ... tell me you love me...."
He has said _me_, he has said _you_, as if it were possible to stand this shock on your breast without turning pale. He sees I am sinking and passes his irresistible arm about my body. The future tears itself to pieces at the bottom of my life. At the end of the Broad Walk the last golden ray goes down in a black mass. I do not know how to say these things, but I raise my head like a slow remonstrance and I hold my gaze up to him. Have I said everything?