r some
moments she sat still, saying nothing. Then, not meeting her friend's
eyes, for they were now fixed on her, she rose.

"Yes. I have been unfair," said Milly. "I have been ungrateful and
unkind, and unfair. I know that you have thought only of me; and you
saw what I've only realised in this last hour. It has hurt so terribly
to realise it--to realise that I've had my chance of happiness and
thrown it away and that now it's too late to get it back again--it's
hurt so terribly that it has made me cruel. You have been right all
along and I have been a fool. But there it is. I love him and I'm
broken-hearted, and now all that I can do is to go away and hide
myself."

She was going, actually going. Their life together was over, shattered.
The intolerable realisation crashed down upon Christina's abasement. She
stood up, staring at her friend. "You are going to leave me, Milly?" she
asked.

Milly averted her eyes. "Yes, Christina. I want to be alone."

"But you will come back?"

"I don't know," said Milly. Still she averted her eyes; but, in the
rigid silence that followed, compunction evidently wrought upon her. She
glanced round at her suffering friend and Christina's eyes met hers.
They hurt her. They were glazed, like the eyes of a deer, waiting for
the hunter's final blow.

"Christina," she said, and her voice showed her pity; "won't you try to
learn to live without me? Really--really--it can't come back again, as
it was. You must see that. Not after all that we have said, all that has
happened. Learn to live without me. Get some nice woman and go to Greece
and try to forget me. I can only mean suffering for you now, and I'm not
nearly good enough for you."

At this Christina broke into dreadful sobs. She did not move towards her
friend, but she stretched her clasped hands out towards her and said,
while her voice, half-strangled, came in gasps: "Milly--Milly--Have you
forgotten everything?--All the years when we were so happy
together?--When he was nothing to you?--For all these years,
Milly--nothing--nothing.--How can you care--suddenly--like this--when
you have almost hated him for so long?--You know what you said, in the
winter, Milly--that you would not care if he were to die."

Milly's eyes had hardened. She moved towards the door.

"Milly!" Christina's cry arrested her. She had to stop and listen,
though her hand was on the door. "Wait! Forgive me!--I don't know what I
am saying!--And it was true