'Content; nothing could be pleasanter than to sit here,' and he
pulled out his pipe; 'but really, Miss Madge, to leave Norbury
without paying a visit to the oak is a pity.'
He did not offer, however, to accompany her.
'It is the most extraordinary tree in these parts,' said Baruch; 'of
incalculable age and with branches spreading into a tent big enough
to cover a regiment. Marshall is quite right.'
'Where is it?'
'Not above a couple of hundred yards further; just round the corner.' Madge rose and looked.
'No; it is not visible here; it stands a little way back. If you
come a little further you will catch a glimpse of it.'
She followed him and presently the oak came in view. They climbed up
the bank and went nearer to it. The whole vale was underneath them
and part of the weald with the Sussex downs blue in the distance.
Baruch was not much given to raptures over scenery, but the
indifference of Nature to the world's turmoil always appealed to him.
'You are not now discontented because you cannot serve under
Mazzini?'
'Not now.' There was nothing in her reply on the face of it of any particular
consequence to Baruch. She might simply have intended that the
beauty of the fair landscape extinguished her restlessness, or that
she saw her own unfitness, but neither of these interpretations
presented itself to him.
'I have sometimes thought,' continued Baruch, slowly, 'that the love
of any two persons in this world may fulfil an eternal purpose which
is as necessary to the Universe as a great revolution.'
Madge's eyes moved round from the hills and they met Baruch's. No
syllable was uttered, but swiftest messages passed, question and
answer. There was no hesitation on his part now, no doubt, the woman
and the moment had come. The last question was put, the final answer
was given; he took her hand in his and came closer to her.
'Stop!' she whispered, 'do you know my history?'
He did not reply, but fell upon her neck. This was the goal to which
both had been journeying all these years, although with much weary
mistaking of roads; this was what from the beginning was designed for
both! Happy Madge! happy Baruch! There are some so closely akin
that the meaning of each may be said to lie in the other, who do not
approach till it is too late. They travel towards one another, but
are waylaid and detained, and just as they are within greeting, one
of them drops and dies.