. "I could have supported myself here if you would--and I've
studied how newspapers are made; I know I could have earned a wage. We
could have made it a daily." He searched in vain for a trace of raillery
in her voice; there was none; she seemed to intend her words to be taken
literally.

"I don't understand," he said. "I don't know what you mean."

"I mean that I want to stay here; that I ought to stay here; that my
conscience tells me I should--but I can't and it makes me very unhappy.
That was why I acted so badly."

"Your conscience!" he cried.

"Oh, I know what a jumble and puzzle it must seem to you."

"I only know one thing; that you are going away to-morrow morning, and
that I shall never see you again."

The darkness had grown heavy. They could not see each other; but a wan
glimmer gave him a fleeting, misty view of her; she stood half-turned
away from him, her hand to her cheek in the uncertain fashion of his
great moment of the afternoon; her eyes-he saw in the flying picture
that he caught--were adorably troubled and her hand trembled. She had
been irresistible in her gaiety; but now that a mysterious distress
assailed her, the reason for which he had no guess, she was so divinely
pathetic; and seemed such a rich and lovely and sad and happy thing to
have come into his life only to go out of it; and he was so full of
the prophetic sense of loss of her--it seemed so much like losing
everything--that he found too much to say to be able to say anything.

He tried to speak, and choked a little. A big drop of rain fell on his
bare head. Neither of them noticed the weather or cared for it. They
stood with the renewed blackness hanging like a thick drapery between
them.

"Can--can you--tell me why you think you ought not to go?" he whispered,
finally, with a great effort.

"No; not now. But I know you would think I am right in wanting to stay,"
she cried, impulsively. "I know you would, if you knew about it--but I
can't, I can't. I must go in the morning."

"I should always think you right," he answered in an unsteady tone,
"Always!" He went over to the bench, fumbled about for his hat, and
picked it up.

"Come," he said, gently, "I am going now."

She stood quite motionless for a full minute or longer; then, without a
word, she moved toward the house. He went to her with hands extended to
find her, and his fingers touched her sleeve. Then together and silently
they found the garden-path; and followe