before
at night, a wall to keep the wind away. What was it you said once about a
man and woman becoming one? You have been my very body to me, Harboro; and
any other could only have been a friendly wind to stir me for a moment and
then pass on."

Harboro's face darkened. "I was the favorite lover," he said.

"You won't understand," she said despairingly. And then as he arose and
turned toward the door again she went to him abjectly, appealingly.
"Harboro!" she cried, "I know I haven't explained it right, but I want you
to believe me! It is you I love, really; it is you I am grateful to and
proud of. You're everything to me that you've thought of being. I couldn't
live without you!" She sank to her knees and covered her eyes with one
hand while with the other she reached out to him: "Harboro!" Her face was
wet with tears, now; her body was shaken with sobs.

He looked down at her for an instant, his brows furrowed, his eyes filled
with horror. He drew farther away, so that she could not touch him. "Great
God!" he cried at last, and then she knew that he had gone, closing the
door sharply after him.

She did not try to call him back. Some stoic quality in her stayed her. It
would be useless to call him; it would only tear her own wounds wider
open, it would distress him without moving him otherwise. It would alarm
old Antonia.

If he willed to come back, he would come of his own accord. If he could
reconcile the things she had done with any hope of future happiness he
would come back to her again.

But she scarcely hoped for his return. She had always had a vague
comprehension of those pragmatic qualities in his nature which placed him
miles above her, or beneath her, or beyond her. She had drunk of the cup
which had been offered her, and she must not rebel because a bitter
sediment lay on her lips. She had always faintly realized that the hours
she spent with Runyon might some day have to be paid for in loneliness and
despair.

Yet now that Harboro was gone she stood at the closed door and stared at
it as if it could never open again save to permit her to pass out upon
ways of darkness. She leaned against it and laid her face against her arm
and wept softly. And then she turned away and knelt by the chair he had
occupied and hid her face in her hands.

She knew he would no longer be visible when she went to the window. She
had spared herself the sight of him on his way out of her life. But now
she took her pla