The question in my mind was not shall we be married, but when shall we be married.  But Isabel’s mood was too serious, too majestic for me to broach these definite subjects now.  I looked into her eyes.  It seemed to me that my thoughts were silently communicated to her.  She pressed my hand gently.  And so after some days of packing, in which I helped her constantly, she sailed away and left me in Rome.

I tried to work but the time would not pass.  All my drawings and etchings were failures.  What after all was art to me except a diversion?  Too late!  The only art that I ever could achieve was that of giving happiness to Isabel and being worthy of her devotion.  Her letters came frequently, always so full of wise observations, striking fancies and imagery; so many with thanks for what I had been to her.  She wrote me that Uncle Tom’s will, as he had dictated it, had been probated and acquiesced in by every one.

Six months went by.  I had gone with Reverdy to Lake Maggiore to escape the heat in Rome.  While I was there a letter came from Isabel asking me to come to her.  In three weeks I was by her side, having first placed Reverdy in Phillips Exeter.  We were together in the great homestead which had belonged to Uncle Tom’s father, there in Connecticut.  It was full of the treasures of old times.  Priceless things gathered on Isabel’s travels—­a great house set in a wonderful expanse of grounds about a mile from a pretty village.  It was October.  The earth was aflame with the fires of the forest.  Jays cried from the maples.  The air was subtle with a delicate scent of pine needles and fallen leaves.

She had other guests in the house.  But they dispersed themselves gracefully.  We were much alone, reading, listening to music played softly by one of her woman friends at a distance in the drawing room.  Our favorite place was the window seat in the library, heaped with pillows and overlooking lilac and rose bushes, where we could see the great elms, the fountain, the country beyond.  We had many walks together; and one afternoon we came to a place on a woodland path amid hills, trees towering above us, a brook playing below us.  The air was hushed with a passionate Orpheus, and there I sensed her yearning.  I heard the rhythm of her flesh singing to me.  Her hands were stretched toward me, the pupils of her eyes grew wide as if a vision stood before her.  For the first time I kissed Isabel upon the lips.

Hitherto we had breathed the rarefied air of the peaks, seen the white light of the upper spaces, felt the passionless gods about us.  Now we were descending the rich valleys, to the clustered vines, to the places of soft sounds and voluptuous air, to havens of sleep, to the replenishment of our souls in the bridal supper.

That night we sat again in the window seat.  Her other guests faded here and there.  For a time there were shadowy fancies from the piano, then the house was stilled.  But outside an April rain was falling.  It pelted the windowpanes as softly as driven petals.  It made a fairy swish as of far-off waves, and we sat together in a dim light.  Isabel’s eyes were closed.  Her head rested partly on my shoulder, partly on a pillow.  Her hand lay limp in my hand.  Her whole being was relaxed.  We were quite alone.