“You’ll be hot and disagreeable by tea-time, we shall be cool and sweet,” put in Hirst. Into his eyes as he looked up at them had come yellow and green reflections from the sky and the branches, robbing them of their intentness, and he seemed to think what he did not say. It was thus taken for granted by them both that Terence and Rachel proposed to walk into the woods together; with one look at each other they turned away.
“Good-bye!” cried Rachel.
“Good-by. Beware of snakes,” Hirst replied. He settled himself still more comfortably under the shade of the fallen tree and Helen’s figure. As they went, Mr. Flushing called after them, “We must start in an hour. Hewet, please remember that. An hour.”
Whether made by man, or for some reason preserved by nature, there was a wide pathway striking through the forest at right angles to the river. It resembled a drive in an English forest, save that tropical bushes with their sword-like leaves grew at the side, and the ground was covered with an unmarked springy moss instead of grass, starred with little yellow flowers. As they passed into the depths of the forest the light grew dimmer, and the noises of the ordinary world were replaced by those creaking and sighing sounds which suggest to the traveller in a forest that he is walking at the bottom of the sea. The path narrowed and turned; it was hedged in by dense creepers which knotted tree to tree, and burst here and there into star-shaped crimson blossoms. The sighing and creaking up above were broken every now and then by the jarring cry of some startled animal. The atmosphere was close and the air came at them in languid puffs of scent. The vast green light was broken here and there by a round of pure yellow sunlight which fell through some gap in the immense umbrella of green above, and in these yellow spaces crimson and black butterflies were circling and settling. Terence and Rachel hardly spoke.
Not only did the silence weigh upon them, but they were both unable to frame any thoughts. There was something between them which had to be spoken of. One of them had to begin, but which of them was it to be? Then Hewet picked up a red fruit and threw it as high as he could. When it dropped, he would speak. They heard the flapping of great wings; they heard the fruit go pattering through the leaves and eventually fall with a thud. The silence was again profound.
“Does this frighten you?” Terence asked when the sound of the fruit falling had completely died away.
“No,” she answered. “I like it.”
She repeated “I like it.” She was walking fast, and holding herself more erect than usual. There was another pause.
“You like being with me?” Terence asked.
“Yes, with you,” she replied.
He was silent for a moment. Silence seemed to have fallen upon the world.
“That is what I have felt ever since I knew you,” he replied. “We are happy together.” He did not seem to be speaking, or she to be hearing.
“Very happy,” she answered.
They continued to walk for some time in silence. Their steps unconsciously quickened.
“We love each other,” Terence said.
“We love each other,” she repeated.
The silence was then broken by their voices which joined in tones of strange unfamiliar sound which formed no words. Faster and faster they walked; simultaneously they stopped, clasped each other in their arms, then releasing themselves, dropped to the earth. They sat side by side. Sounds stood out from the background making a bridge across their silence; they heard the swish of the trees and some beast croaking in a remote world.
“We love each other,” Terence repeated, searching into her face. Their faces were both very pale and quiet, and they said nothing. He was afraid to kiss her again. By degrees she drew close to him, and rested against him. In this position they sat for some time. She said “Terence” once; he answered “Rachel.”
“Terrible—terrible,” she murmured after another pause, but in saying this she was thinking as much of the persistent churning of the water as of her own feeling. On and on it went in the distance, the senseless and cruel churning of the water. She observed that the tears were running down Terence’s cheeks.
The next movement was on his part. A very long time seemed to have passed. He took out his watch.
“Flushing said an hour. We’ve been gone more than half an hour.”
“And it takes that to get back,” said Rachel. She raised herself very slowly. When she was standing up she stretched her arms and drew a deep breath, half a sigh, half a yawn. She appeared to be very tired. Her cheeks were white. “Which way?” she asked.
“There,” said Terence.
They began to walk back down the mossy path again. The sighing and creaking continued far overhead, and the jarring cries of animals. The butterflies were circling still in the patches of yellow sunlight. At first Terence was certain of his way, but as they walked he became doubtful. They had to stop to consider, and then to return and start once more, for although he was certain of the direction of the river he was not certain of striking the point where they had left the others. Rachel followed him, stopping where he stopped, turning where he turned, ignorant of the way, ignorant why he stopped or why he turned.
“I don’t want to be late,” he said, “because—” He put a flower into her hand and her fingers closed upon it quietly. “We’re so late—so late—so horribly late,” he repeated as if he were talking in his sleep. “Ah—this is right. We turn here.”
They found themselves again in the broad path, like the drive in the English forest, where they had started when they left the others. They walked on in silence as people walking in their sleep, and were oddly conscious now and again of the mass of their bodies. Then Rachel exclaimed suddenly, “Helen!”
In the sunny space at the edge of the forest they saw Helen still sitting on the tree-trunk, her dress showing very white in the sun, with Hirst still propped on his elbow by her side. They stopped instinctively. At the sight of other people they could not go on. They stood hand in hand for a minute or two in silence. They could not bear to face other people.
“But we must go on,” Rachel insisted at last, in the curious dull tone of voice in which they had both been speaking, and with a great effort they forced themselves to cover the short distance which lay between them and the pair sitting on the tree-trunk.
As they approached, Helen turned round and looked at them. She looked at them for some time without speaking, and when they were close to her she said quietly:
“Did you meet Mr. Flushing? He has gone to find you. He thought you must be lost, though I told him you weren’t lost.”
Hirst half turned round and threw his head back so that he looked at the branches crossing themselves in the air above him.
“Well, was it worth the effort?” he enquired dreamily.
Hewet sat down on the grass by his side and began to fan himself.
Rachel had balanced herself near Helen on the end of the tree trunk.
“Very hot,” she said.
“You look exhausted anyhow,” said Hirst.
“It’s fearfully close in those trees,” Helen remarked, picking up her book and shaking it free from the dried blades of grass which had fallen between the leaves. Then they were all silent, looking at the river swirling past in front of them between the trunks of the trees until Mr. Flushing interrupted them. He broke out of the trees a hundred yards to the left, exclaiming sharply:
“Ah, so you found the way after all. But it’s late—much later than we arranged, Hewet.”
He was slightly annoyed, and in his capacity as leader of the expedition, inclined to be dictatorial. He spoke quickly, using curiously sharp, meaningless words.
“Being late wouldn’t matter normally,