What he would do afterwards, fate alone should determine. Laying his
head upon a mossy hummock, comfortable as a pillow of eider down,
despite the anguish of his heart, and the stinging of his wound, he
was soon asleep, and dreaming of days when their was neither peril nor
sorrow.
When he awoke he could perceive through the forest a slight tinge of
crimson in the west; and he knew that the day was done. At first he
could not collect his wits to remember how he had come hither, but a
sharp pain in his breast brought back the truth in its naked
hideousness. Why should he ever have awakened? Was he not happy in
that sweet, sweet state wherein the present had no place, and the
happy past was lived again? For while he slept he once again met
Aster. Tears were in her glorious eyes, and with trembling lips she
told him that she thought he would never come. And, taking him to the
bank of the little stream that brawled down the rough slope of her
father's common, she made him vow that he would never again leave her
pining. And taking her head upon his shoulder he looked into her
beautiful eyes, and he read in their tender, glimmering depths the
secret that she loved him.
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