she took his head between her hands.

"Maurice ... I'm older than you, and I know better than you, what all
this means. Believe me, I'm not worth your love. I'm only the shadow of
my old self. And you are still so young and so ... so untried. There's
still time to turn back, and be wise."

He raised his head.

"What do you mean? Why are you saying these things? I shall always love
you. Life itself is nothing to me, without you. I want you ... only
you."

He put his arms round her, and tried to draw her to him. But she held
back. At the expression of her face, he had a moment of acute
uncertainty, and would have loosened his hold. But now it was she who
knotted her hands round his neck, and gave him a long, penetrating
look. He was bewildered; he did not understand what it meant; but it
was something so strange that, again, he had the impulse to let her go.
She bent her head, and laid her face against his; cheek rested on
cheek. He took her face between his hands, and stared into her eyes, as
if to tear from them what was passing in her brain. Over both, in the
same breath, swept the warm, irresistible wave of self-surrender. He
caught her to him, roughly and awkwardly, in a desperate embrace, which
the kindly dusk veiled and redeemed.

XIII.

"Now you will not leave me, Maurice?"

"Never ... while I live."

"And you ..."

"No. Don't ask me yet. I can't tell you."

"Maurice!"

"Forgive me! Not yet. That after all you should care a little! After
all ... that you should care so much!"

"And it is for ever?"

"For ever and ever ... what do you take me for? But not here! Let us go
away--to some new place. We will make it our very own."

Their words came in haste, yet haltingly; were all but inaudible
whispers; went flying back and forwards, like brief cries for aid,
implying a peculiar sense of aloofness, of being cut adrift and thrown
on each other's mercy.

Louise raised her head.

"Yes, we will go away. But now, Maurice--at once!"

"Yes. To-night ... to-morrow ... when you like."

The next morning, he set out to find a place. Three weeks of the term
had still to run, and he was to have played in an ABENDUNTERHALTUNG,
before the vacation. But, compared with the emotional upheaval he had
undergone, this long-anticipated event was of small consequence. To
Schwarz, he alleged a succession of nervous headaches, which interfered
with his work. His looks lent colour to the statement; and though,