ll not interrupt again. You may
listen or not, as you wish. Later, I may have a word to say to you; but
now there is nothing to be said." Just a moment longer the look held, a
moment wherein the other man felt his tongue grow dumb; then with the
old impassivity, the old isolation, the black eyes shifted until they
rested on the face of the girl.

But for still another moment--he was as deliberate as nature herself,
this man--he stood so, looking down. Always slender, he had grown more
so these last weeks. Moreover, he had the look of one weary unto death.
His black eyes were bright, mysteriously bright, and on his thin hands,
folded across his chest, the veins stood out full and prominent; but
look where one would on the lithe body, the muscles lay distinct beneath
the close-fitting clothes, distinct to emaciation. Standing there now,
very grave, very repressed, there was nevertheless no reproach in his
expression, no trace of bitterness; only a haunting tenderness, infinite
in its pathos. When he spoke the same incredible tolerance throbbed in
the low-pitched voice.

"I've just a few things I wish to say to you, Bess," he began, "and a
request to make--and that is all. I didn't come back so, unexpectedly,
to be unpleasant, or to interfere with what you wish to do. I came
because I fancied you were going to do an unwise thing: because I had
reason to believe you were going to run away." Unconsciously, one of the
folded hands loosened, passed absently over his forehead; then returned
abruptly to its place. "Perhaps I was mistaken. If so I beg your pardon
for the suspicion; but at least, if I can prevent, I don't want you to
do so. It's this I came to tell you." Again the voice halted, and into
it there came a new note: a self-conquered throb that lingered in the
girl's recollection while memory lasted.

"It's useless to talk of yourself and of myself, Bess," he went on.
"Things are as they are--and final. I don't judge you, I--understand.
Above everything else in life, I wish you to be happy; and I realise now
I can't make you so. Another perhaps can; I hope so and trust so. At
least I shall not stand in your way any longer. It is that I came to
tell you. It is I who shall leave and not you, Bess." Of a sudden he
stepped back and lifted one hand free, preventingly. "Just a moment,
please," he requested. "Don't interrupt me until I say what I came to
say." His arms folded back as before, his eyes held hers compellingly.