h other."

"Do you mean for always? That we're never to see each other again?"

"Yes, if it's to be any good."

"Steven, I can bear anything but that. It _can't_ mean that."

"I tell you it's what it means for me. There's no good talking about
it. You've seen what I've been like tonight."

"This? This is nothing. You'll get over this. But think what it would
mean to me."

"It would be hard, I know."

"Hard?"

"Not half so hard as this."

"But I can bear this. We've been so happy. We can be happy still."

"This isn't happiness."

"It's _my_ happiness. It's all I've got. It's all I've ever had."

"What is?"

"Seeing you. Or not even seeing you. Knowing you're there."

"Poor child. Does that make you happy?"

"Utterly happy. Always."

"I didn't know."

He stooped forward, hiding his face in his hands.

"You don't realise it. You've no idea what it'll mean to be boxed up
in this place together, all our lives, with this between us."

"It's always been between us. We shall be no worse off. It may have
been bad now and then, but conceive what it'll be like when you go."

"I suppose it would be pretty beastly for you if I did go."

"Would it be too awful for you if you stayed?"

He was a long time before he answered.

"Not if it really made you happier."

"Happier?"

She smiled her pitiful, strained smile. It said, "Don't you see that
it would kill me if you went?"

And again it was by her difference, her helplessness, that she had
him.

He too smiled drearily.

"You don't suppose I really could have left you?"

He saw that it was impossible, unthinkable, that he should leave her.

He rose. She went with him to the door. She thought of something
there.

"Steven," she said, "don't worry about to-night. It was all my fault."

"You--you," he murmured. "You're adorable."

"It was really," she said. "I made you come in."

She gave him her cold hand. He raised it and brushed it with his lips
and put it from him.

"Your little conscience was always too tender."

LV

Two years passed.

Life stirred again in the Vicarage, feebly and slowly, with the slow
and feeble stirring of the Vicar's brain.

Ten o'clock was prayer time again.

Twice every Sunday the Vicar appeared in his seat in the chancel.
Twice he pronounced the Absolution. Twice he tottered to the altar
rails, turned, shifted his stick from his left hand to his right, and,
with his one good arm raised, he gave the B