Algernon Blackwood

“ To keep the flame alight for ten long buffeting years was no small achievement; better men had succumbed in half the time. Yet something in him still held fast to the girl as with a band of steel that would not let her go entirely. Occasionally there came strong reversions, when he ached with longing, yearning, hope; when he loved her again; remembered passionately each detail of the far-off courtship days in the forbidden rectory garden beyond the small, white garden gate. ”

“ Had he not, after all, deceived himself? Had she ever really “faded” at all? Had he not felt he ought to let her fade⁠—release her that way? And the change in himself?⁠—that sentence on the Californian fruit-farm⁠—what did they mean? Which had been true, the fading or the love?
The confusion in his mind was hopeless, but, as a matter of fact, he did not think at all: he only felt. The momentum, besides, was irresistible, and before the shattering onset of the sweet revival he did not stop to analyse the strange result. ”

“ In several things he did and said, this hesitancy and miscalculation betrayed themselves⁠—such trivial things, yet significant in an elusive way that he disliked. There was sadness, insecurity somewhere in them. And he resented them, aware of their existence only because they qualified his joy. There was a whispered “No” floating somewhere in the dusk. ”

“ There was joy and glory in his heart, and a yearning sweet delight. At this very moment she was expecting him. And he⁠—had come.
Behind these positive emotions, however, there lay concealed all the time others that were of a negative character. Consciously, he was not aware of them, but they were there; they revealed their presence in various little ways that puzzled him. He recognised them absentmindedly, as it were; did not analyse or investigate them. ”

“ Some trick of memory connected it with a scene of early boyhood, when, meaning to see the sunrise, he overslept, and, by a brief half-hour, was just⁠—too late. He noted it merely, then passed on; he did not understand it; he hurried all the more, this hurry the only sign that it was noted. “I must be quick,” flashed up across his strongly positive emotions. ”

“ For she was giving information⁠—in the colourless, disinterested voice such persons use:
“We all went to the funeral, sir, all the country people went. The grave was her father’s⁠—the family grave.⁠ ⁠...” Then, seeing that her customer was too absorbed in the timetable to listen further, she said no more but began to pile the tea things onto the tray with noisy clatter. ”

“ In the interval he had suffered hardships, had learned the uncertainty of life that depends for its continuance on a little food, but that food often hard to come by, and had seen so many others go under that he held it more cheaply than of old. ”

“ Moreover, there were other signs of an odd miscalculation⁠—dislocation, perhaps, properly speaking⁠—in him. Though the inn was familiar from his boyhood days, kept by the same old couple, too, he volunteered no information about himself, nor asked a single question about the village he was bound for. He did not even inquire if the rector⁠—her father⁠—still were living. ”