Part 3 — PART III LOVE LIES BLEEDING

Sloping fir alleys; bounded at one end by a darkly mantled fish-pond, at the other by an open park, with grazing deer and cattle. Birds avoid these fir-woods: this one was silent, save for a low boom of insects and the dwarfish whistling of shrew-mice.

Ravil was first at the meeting-place. He rested in a cathedral-like vista overarched with olive—the glade where Flavia had sung. The wiry grass was hot with the sun, the air thick with fragrance.

He waited in gladness. As the time had drawn near much of his dread had vanished, and although he still felt like a man who stands with his back to a pit, on whose verge his heels are pressing, the light beating on his brain so dazzled him that little save the maddest joy was left.

In the interval he conjured up visions of her beauty: his lips moved as if to kiss. He reviewed for the thousandth time the history of their passion. No false humility had ever troubled him; and despite the worldly distinction between noble and plebeian, he saw himself her equal at all points. In his egotistical belief, the highest patent of nobility should be bestowed on those with unplumbed depths of feeling, with superior capacities for suffering.

At last she came, not in azure this time, but in a gown of plain russet, such as any of the cottagers’ wives on her land might have worn. But something exquisite in her manner of wearing it showed the gentle rounding of her breasts, the rise and fall of her breathing. A flush spread over her face as he rose to greet her; at the sight the old hunger came, and he bent his head to hers.

‘Once,’ she said very faintly.

There was a note of sublime renunciation in her voice. If she had loved him with all her heart, and had discovered that his future required the breaking of the unlawful bond, she could not have shown a nobler pathos. He flung his arm about her neck, and half-savagely kissed her ripe lips.

Soon she drew apart. ‘You hurt me,’ she said. ‘There is not much time.... I must return soon ... there are people.... He....’

He fell back with contorted mouth, for the lash had agonised him with its subtle poison. Pity filled her, and she soothed him with velvet caresses, tried to flatter him with hopes of fame. ’Twould be best for him; in after years they would meet, he jubilant with men’s praise, she saddened and broken in by the legal bond. For his sake, all for his sake.

When he had recovered somewhat he strove to discover the truth in her eyes. It was a profitless task.

His chin began to tremble. ‘Here are the letters,’ he whispered huskily. ‘Keep mine.... Leave me here.... Good-bye.’

Flavia went weeping away. Ere she had walked a mile a sudden thrill shook her from head to foot, and she sank down to the grass. A wonderful light shone from her face. Life’s greatness was upon her: her lover’s child had stirred within her body.

Born of womanly ecstasy, born of the pain of parting, love that before had been a sickly dwarf, sprang up a ruddy giant. O the bliss, the ten-fold bliss of passion revived!

She hurried to the place where she had left him, wild to pant out her secret on his breast. He was there still, but white and rigid, and with a purple wound in his temple.