234 THE CHANGE 



Spring was in the hearts of the wild birds 

 I loved, but my heart was dead. What 

 was there left ? To recreate that love and 

 cruelty, and write out of my sorrow and 

 folly! Greater than all written art is life 

 and happiness : a simple living with a 

 beloved and the joy of children's young 

 voices. By the grassy mound I stayed 

 with the shadows. My heart was broken, 

 the more irretrievably because I had broken 

 it myself. Remorse, remorse ! " 



Memory ceased. Again the dry whisper 

 of the leaf overbore the wintry solitude 

 and song-silence in that little wood in 

 Whitefoot Lane, where the bark of the 

 trees was stripped, and all undergrowth 

 was trampled down. The green wood- 

 peckers would laugh no more in spring : 

 only a few poor wind flowers and bluebells 

 would tell of past loveliness. The pale 

 visitant was gone, and with no sound of 

 footfall. 



The leaf spun insistently as the wind 



