loving you ... loving you ...
having only your friendship. No man could endure it ... no real man...."

He broke off. The next instant he said, "Forgive me. It seems brutal to
speak so ... so bluntly--but at least there must be truth between us."

Sophy said in a choked voice:

"If you think all the suffering is yours ... you ... you are mistaken,
Amaldi."

"Forgive me...." he repeated.

"And ... and...." she stumbled on, "you speak of my being free ... but
even if ... if things were ... different ... you are not free...."

"Do you mean if you ... loved me?" said Amaldi.

"Yes," she murmured, colouring deeply.

He flushed, too, then paled.

"In that case I should soon free myself," he said.

Sophy glanced up at him in amazement, then down again.

"But ... there is no divorce in Italy...." she stammered.

"An Italian can be naturalised in Switzerland and divorced there," he
rejoined, steadying his voice with an effort.

All at once her face quivered, she put up her hands to hide it. Then she
whispered brokenly:

"You would do _that_ for me?"

"It would be nothing ... if you loved me," he answered.

There was silence for a moment or two. Then it broke from him again.

"I couldn't go on acting to you ... lying to you...."

"Oh, I know ... I know...." she answered.

Suddenly he was on his knees beside her. He caught her hands and held
them to his breast.

"Can't it ever be different?" he was stammering. "Can't it ever be
different? Some time ... after years maybe?... Is there no love in you
for me?... None at all?"

But as he knelt there beside her stammering with the ardour of his long
suppressed love, it was Loring that Sophy thought of--Loring who had
also knelt beside her in desperate appeal. She blanched with the
confused, humiliating pain of it.

"Oh, don't you see ... don't you see," she pleaded. "I haven't any love
to give.... How could I have?..." She drew away her hands and pressed
them to her own breast. "I'm like a dead thing...." she said
desperately, "dead ... cold...."

He rose and walked away from her, stood thinking for a little, then came
back. Still standing, he looked down at her bent head.

"Tell me this at least," he said, "if we had met ... at first ... before
things happened in both our lives ... do you think that you might have
... cared for me?"

Sophy did not answer at once. Her past was rushing before her. Then she
sprang impulsively to her feet.

"Yes, Amaldi,