lacquer tray she was at that moment carrying into
the room. She sat down on the window seat and put the tray down beside
her. 'It will be before dark even now,' she said, glancing out at the
faintly burning skies.

They had trudged on together with almost as deep a sense of physical
exhaustion as peasants have who have been labouring in the fields since
daybreak. And a little beyond the village, before the last, long road
began that led in presently to the housed and scrupulous suburb, she
stopped with a sob beside an old scarred milestone by the wayside.
'This--is as far as I can go,' she said. She stooped, and laid her hand
on the cold moss-grown surface of the stone. 'Even now it's wet with
dew.' She rose again and looked strangely into his face. 'Yes, yes, here
it is,' she said, 'oh, and worse, worse than any fear. But nothing now
can trouble you again of that. We're both at least past that.'

'Grisel,' he said, 'forgive me, but I can't--I can't go on.'

'Don't think, don't think,' she said, taking his hands, and lifting them
to her bosom. 'It's only how the day goes; and it has all, my one
dear, happened scores and scores of times before--mother and child and
friend--and lovers that are all these too, like us. We mustn't cry out.
Perhaps it was all before even we could speak--this sorrow came. Take
all the hope and all the future: and then may come our chance.'

'What's life to me now. You said the desire would come back; that I
should shake myself free. I could if you would help me. I don't know
what you are or what your meaning is, only that I love you; care for
nothing, wish for nothing but to see you and think of you. A flat, dull
voice keeps saying that I have no right to be telling you all this.
You will know best. I know I am nothing. I ask nothing. If we love one
another, what is there else to say?'

'Nothing, nothing to say, except only good-bye. What could you tell
me that I have not told myself over and over again? Reason's gone.
Thinking's gone. Now I am only sure.' She smiled shadowily. 'What peace
did HE find who couldn't, perhaps, like you, face the last good-bye?'

They stood in utter solitude awhile in the evening gloom. The air was
as still and cold as some grey unfathomable untraversed sea. Above them
uncountable clouds drifted slowly across space.

'Why do they all keep whispering together?' he said in a low voice, with
cowering face. 'Oh if you knew, Grisel, how they have hemmed me in; h