Read "The Bright Messenger" by Algernon Blackwood online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
As upon a former occasion some twenty-four hours before, "N. H." seemed hardly aware that his visitor had left, though this time there was the vital difference -- that what was of value had not gone at all. The essence of the girl, it seemed, was still with him. It remained. The physical presence was to him apparently the least of all.
He returned to his place at the open window of the darkening room, while night, with her cooler airs, passed over the world on tiptoe. He drew deep breaths, opened his arms, and seemed to shake himself, as though glad to be free of recent little awkward and unnatural gestures that had irked him. There was happiness in his face. "She is a builder, though she has forgotten," ran his thought with pleasure, "and I can work with her. Like Fillery, she builds up, constructs; we are all three in the same service, and the gods are glad. I love her . yes. but she" -- his thoughts grew troubled and confused -- "she speaks of another love that is a tight and binding little thing. that catches and confines. It is for one person only. one person for one other. For two. only for two persons!. What is its meaning then?"