He took the cliff-path though the night was dark with storm-clouds.
Somehow, instinctively, his feet led him thither. There were no
nightingales singing now, and the gorse had long since faded in the
fierce heat of summer. The sea lay leaden far below him, barely visible
in the dimness. And there was no star in the sky.
Heavily he tramped over the ground where Juliet had lingered on that
night of magic in the spring, and as he went, he told himself that he
had lost her. Whatever the outcome of to-day's happenings, she would
never be the same to him again. She had passed out of his reach. Her own
world had claimed her again and there could be no return. He recalled the
regret in her eyes at parting. Surely--most surely--she had known that
that was the end. For her the midsummer madness was over, burnt away like
the glory of the gorse-bushes about him. With a conviction that was
beyond all reason he knew that they had come to a parting of the ways.
And there was no bond between them, no chain but that which his love had
forged. She had pleaded to retain her freedom, and now with bitter
intuition he knew wherefore. She had always realized that to which he in
his madness had been persistently blind.
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