XVI.
Sweet April, blossomy April, the laughing capricious maid,
Had velvet enamellar carpets spread in garden and glebe and glade,
Had carelessly dropped her loose-clasped gold, dotting with coins the lawn,
Had lingered for thirty ravishing days, and to-night was almost gone,
For the latest even of April had come, and the soft air, moist with rain,
Stole through the ivied casement, a lilac breath in its train,
Over the two who had known together a year of divinest love,
And who now had come by the will of fate to the last sweet moment thereof.
“Kyrle, I have something to ask,” she said, timidly stroking his hand,
“Answer me not with blame of my weakness, but try, dear, to understand,—
It is that you let me leave home to-night,—but of course, dear Kyrle, not for long,—
I dare not be present to-morrow,—I have aye been so brave and so strong
That haply you think I can bear all things,—but if the result should go wrong,
If you should not see as they say you will, if instead of triumphal song,
Your voice breaks down in a heartstruck wail at a failure abrupt and complete,
I could not survive the cruel shock,—I should drop down dead at your feet!”
“Nay now, Saville, thou art far too bold,—why, what shall it profit me
The fleecy flocks of the sky to mark, the crocus and primrose to see,
Ay, even my first love, ‘Rupert’s Trust,’ and not—O Saville! not thee?
Yet thou shalt never ask boon in vain,—I will thine almoner be,
A warden most lenient,—Go, dear heart! for a score of hours thou art free!”
And softly she thanked her lord and liege, meek as a scriptural wife,
And he might not discern from her even tones with what pangs her bosom was rife,
Nor dreamed that in passing away that night she was passing sheer out of his life.
And she came and knelt by his chair once more, wrapped in her soft rich cloak,
And nestled her poor sad face in his breast and brokenly, tenderly spoke,
“O love, my love, in the days to come winnow thy mind of the ill
I haply have done thee,—remember alone that I was thy Fairy Saville!”
And he kissed her thrice and he said “Good-night,” and she bit back a passionate cry,
And he noted not in his hope and joy that her answering word was “Good-bye!”
