Here on the felled trunk, which still lay rotting in its old place, they would now sit, gazing at the descending sheet of water, with its never-ending sarcastic hiss at their baffled attempts to make themselves one flesh.

Returning to the house they would sit down together to tea, after which, and the confidential chat that accompanied it, he walked home by the declining light.

This proceeding became as periodic as an astronomical recurrence.

Twice a week he came--all through that winter, all through the spring following, through the summer, through the autumn, the next winter, the next year, and the next, till an appreciable span of human life had passed by.

Bellston still tarried.
Years and years Nic walked that way, at this interval of three days, from his house in the neighbouring town; and in every instance the aforesaid order of things was customary; and still on his arrival the form of words went on--'He has not come ?' 'He has not.' So they grew older.