"Ah, surely not," said she, sorrow rather than reproach in her gentle
voice.

"Indeed, yes. Mine is a selfish grief. It is for myself that I sorrow,
for myself and my own loneliness. It is thus with all of us. When we
argue that we weep the dead, it would be more true to say that we bewail
the living. For him--it is better as it is. No doubt it is better so for
most men, when all is said, and we do wrong to weep their passing."

"Do not talk so," she said. "It hurts."

"Ay--it is the way of truth to hurt, which is why, hating pain, we shun
truth so often." He sighed. "But, oh, it was good in you to seek me, to
bring me word with your own lips of your sweet sympathy. If aught could
lighten the gloom of my sorrow, surely it is that."

They stepped along in silence until they came to the end of the avenue,
and turned. It was no idle silence: the silence of two beings who have
naught to say. It was a grave, portentous silence, occasioned by the
unutterable much in the mind of one, and by the other's apprehension of
it. At last she spoke, to ask him what he meant to do.

"I shall return to France," he said. "It had perhaps been better had I
never crossed to England."

"I cannot think so," she said, simply, frankly and with no touch of a
coquetry that had been harshly at discord with time and place.

He shot her a swift, sidelong glance; then stopped, and turned. "I am
glad on't," said he. "'Twill make my going the easier."

"I mean not that," she cried, and held out her hands to him. "I meant
not what you think--you know, you know what 'twas I meant. You know--you
must--what impulse brought me to you in this hour, when I knew you must
need comfort. And in return how cruel, were you not--to tell me that
yonder lay buried the only living being that--that loved you?"

His fingers were clenched upon her arm. "Don't--don't!" he implored
hoarsely, a strange fire in his eyes, a hectic flush on either cheek.
"Don't! Or I'll forget what I am, and take advantage of this midsummer
folly that is upon you."

"Is it no more than folly, Justin?" she asked him, brown eyes looking up
into gray-green.

"Ay, something more--stark madness. All great emotions are. It will
pass, and you will be thankful that I was man enough--strong enough--to
allow it the chance of passing."

She hung her head, shaking it sorrowfully. Then very softly: "Is it no
more than the matter of--of that, that stands between us?" she inquired.

"No more tha