ey walked in the beech wood beyond the
garden.

"It's only what we might have foreseen in this crowded, narrow-minded
place!" she ended bitterly.

Amaldi, who was stripping the fronds of a dead leaf that he had picked
up, kept his eyes on it. He did not say anything for a second or two,
then he observed in that level, withheld voice that she knew meant
intense feeling:

"I'm afraid we might have expected it in any place."

"Oh, Amaldi!--no!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"I'm afraid so," he repeated.

They were seated now on a felled log. Through the incessant quivering of
the nervous leaves they could see the gleam of the pond sunk in wreaths
of loose-strife--the "long purples" of Ophelia's garland. It was all
white and blue with the August sky. Except for the sound of blowing
leaves the wood was very still. This stillness seemed to make it all
more embarrassing and hateful somehow. Sophy sat chin on hand, staring
at the shining pond. Other things that must be put into words were
impossible to utter just then.

Amaldi broke the silence.

"I suppose," he said in that expressionless voice, "that we shall have
to stop seeing each other--for the present at least."

This was just what Sophy had shrunk from saying. She answered very
dejectedly:

"I ... I suppose so. Yes ... it's the only thing to do of course." Then
she broke out in her impetuous way: "Oh, how hateful and unnecessary it
all is!--how humiliating--and how sad.... I _did_ think that friendship
would be left me...."

There were tears in her voice. Amaldi turned suddenly and looked at her.
The moment that she saw his eyes she knew what was coming.

"I've failed you, too," he said. "It isn't friendship that I feel for
you...."

As her eyes fell away from his, he added passionately: "How could it be
otherwise?... How could it be?..."

And all at once it was revealed to Sophy that he was right--that she had
been blind and mistaken once again to an almost incredible degree. She
sat dumb with pain, knowing less than ever what to say. And her pain
told her that he was very, very dear to her, and yet that she recoiled
from the mere idea of love more violently than ever. But there was no
half way here, she must renounce him if she could not return his love.

Amaldi went on:

"It had to come. I meant to tell you. I hoped that I would be strong
enough ... but I'm not. It's beyond me.... I can't endure it--this being
near you ... knowing you are free ...