Unorna walked forward in silence, choosing a path so narrow that
her companion found himself obliged to drop behind and follow in her
footsteps. In the wildest part of this wilderness of death there is a
little rising of the ground. Here both the gravestones and the stunted
trees are thickest, and the solitude is, if possible, even more complete
than elsewhere. As she reached the highest point Unorna stood still,
turned quickly towards the Wanderer and held out both her hands towards
him.
"I have chosen this place, because it is quiet," she said, with a soft
smile.
Hardly knowing why he did so, he laid his hands in hers and looked
kindly down to her upturned face.
"What is it?" he asked, meeting her eyes.
She was silent, and her fingers did not unclasp themselves. He looked at
her, and saw for the hundredth time that she was very beautiful. There
was a faint colour in her cheeks, and her full lips were just parted
as though a loving word had escaped them which she would not willingly
recall. Against the background of broken neutral tints, her figure stood
out, an incarnation of youth and vitality. If she had often looked weary
and pale of late, her strength and freshness had returned to her now
in all their abundance. The Wanderer knew that he was watching her, and
knew that he was thinking of her beauty and realising the whole extent
of it more fully than ever before, but beyond this point his thoughts
could not go.
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