Wilfrid looked moodily into the opposite hedge.

“Did he name the day for your going?” he asked presently, little anticipating another “Yes”:  but it came:  and her rather faltering manner showed her to be conscious too that the word was getting to be a black one to him.

“Did you say you would go?”

“I did.”

Question and answer crossed like two rapiers.

Wilfrid jumped up.

“The smell of this tree’s detestable,” he said, glancing at the shadowing hawthorn.

Emilia rose quietly, plucked a flower off the tree, and put it in her bosom.

Their way was down a green lane and across long meadow-paths dim in the moonlight.  A nightingale was heard on this side and on that.  Overhead they had a great space of sky with broken cloud full of the glory of the moon.  The meadows dipped to a brook, slenderly spanned by a plank.  Then there was an ascent through a cornfield to a copse.  Rounding this they had sight of Brookfield.  But while they were yet at the brook, Wilfrid said, “When is it you’re going to Italy?”

In return he had an eager look, so that he was half-ashamed to add, “With Captain Gambier, I mean.”  He was suffering, and by being brutal he expected to draw balm on himself; nor was he deceived.

Emilia just then gave him her hand to be led over, and answered, as she neared him, “I am never to leave you.”

“You never shall!” Wilfrid caught her in his arms, quite conquered by her, proud of her.  He reflected with a loving rapture that her manner at that moment was equal to any lady’s; and the phantom of her with her hand out, and her frank look, and trustful footing, while she spoke those words, kept on advancing to him all the way to Brookfield, at the same time that the sober reality murmured at his elbow.

Love, with his accustomed cunning, managed thus to lift her out of the mire and array her in his golden dress to idealize her, as we say.  Reconciled for the hour were the contesting instincts in the nature of this youth the adoration of feminine refinement and the susceptibility to sensuous impressions.  But Emilia walked with a hero:  the dream of all her days! one, generous and gentle, as well as brave:  who had fought for her, had thought of her tenderly, was with her now, having raised her to his level with a touch!  How much might they not accomplish together:  he with sword, she with harp?  Through shadowy alleys in the clouds, Emilia saw the bright Italian plains opening out to her:  the cities of marble, such as her imagination had fashioned them, porticos of stately palaces, and towers, and statues white among cypresses; and farther, minutely-radiant in the vista as a shining star, Venice of the sea.  Fancy made the flying minutes hours.  Now they marched with the regiments of Italy, under the folds of her free banner; now she sang to the victorious army, waving the banner over them; and now she floated in a gondola, and turning to him, the dear home of her heart, yet pale with the bleeding of his wound for Italy, said softly, in the tone that had power with him, “Only let me please you!”