When he was gone, Haward, left alone, looked for a while upon the heights
of stars. "I too shall dream to-night," he breathed to himself. "To-morrow
all will be well." His gaze falling from the splendor of the skies to the
swaying trees, gaunt, bare, and murmuring of their loss to the hurrying
river, sadness and vague fear took sudden possession of his soul. He spoke
her name over and over; he left the house and went into the garden. It was
the garden of the dying year, and the change that in the morning he had
smiled to see now appalled him. He would have had it June again. Now, when
on the morrow he and Audrey should pass through the garden, it must be
down dank and leaf-strewn paths, past yellow and broken stalks, with here
and there wan ghosts of flowers.
He came to the dial, and, bending, pressed his lips against the carven
words that, so often as they had stood there together, she had traced with
her finger. "Love! thou mighty alchemist!" he breathed. "Life! that may
now be gold, now iron, but never again dull lead! Death"--He paused; then,
"There shall be no death," he said, and left the withered garden for the
lonely, echoing house.