away from him, downhill.

At that he could bear no more, and quelling the impulse with a
mighty effort, he got upon his feet crying, "Beloved, stay! Beloved,
stay, beloved!"

And he staggered round the Pound as quickly as his shaking knees
would let him; but quicker still she slid away, and when he came
where she had been the place was as empty as the sky in its moonless
season. He called and ran about and called again; but he got no
answer, nor found what he sought. All that night he spent in calling
and running to and fro. What he did on Sunday you may know, and I
may know, but he did not. On Sunday night he stayed beside the Pond,
but whatever his hopes were they received no fulfillment. On Monday
night he was there again, and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday; and
between the mornings and the nights he went from hill to hill,
seeking her hiding-place who came to bathe in the lake. There was
not a hill within a day's march that did not know him, from Duncton
to Mount Harry. But on none of them he found the Woman. How he lived
is a puzzle. Perhaps upon wild raspberries.

After the sun had set on Chanctonbury on Saturday night, he came
exhausted to the Ring again, and stood on that high hill gazing
earthward. But there was no light above or below, and he said:

"I have lost all. For the earth is swallowed in blackness, and the
Woman has disappeared into space, and I myself have cast away my
spiritual initiation. I will sit by the Pond till midnight, and if
the bird sings then I will still hope, but if it does not I will dip
my head in the water and not lift it again."