All day long it seemed to creep
with him through the endless country. But London came at last.
It was still the afternoon, but he did not care to go to his room.
Leaving his knapsack at the station, he made his way to Westminster.
He wanted all things to be unchanged, so that between this evening
and their parting it might seem as if there had merely passed an
ugly dream; and timing himself, he reached the park just at their
usual hour.
He waited till the gates were closed, but she did not come. All day
long at the back of his mind had been that fear, but he had driven
it away. She was ill, just a headache, or merely tired.
And the next evening he told himself the same. He dared not whisper
to himself anything else. And each succeeding evening again. He
never remembered how many. For a time he would sit watching the
path by which she had always come; and when the hour was long past
he would rise and walk towards the gate, look east and west, and
then return. One evening he stopped one of the park-keepers and
questioned him. Yes, the man remembered her quite well: the young
lady with the fawn gloves. She had come once or twice--maybe
oftener, the park-keeper could not be sure--and had waited. No,
there had been nothing to show that she was in any way upset.
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