that you wanted to come back to me."

"Alive--in a different way."

"What sort of different way?"

Her eyes became appealing. "Oh, what's the good of talking of it now?"

"Because you haven't told me what I asked--why you married him--why you
married any one."

She turned the query against himself: "Why did _you_?"

"I didn't till after you did. I wouldn't have done it then if--if I
hadn't been so--well, to put it plainly, so damned lonely."

She gave him one of the smiles that stabbed him. "Well, then? Doesn't
that answer your question?"

He thought it did, and for a while they listened to the blackbird's song
in silence. It was their last talk. They parted at the door of the Ritz
with the intention of spending the next day in Windsor Forest--or some
other romantic wood; but within a few minutes she had telephoned him
that the summons had arrived. Next morning she left for Paris.

And so he went to Berne. He hadn't meant to go there when he said
good-by to her at Victoria. He had no intention of following her or
putting himself in her way. He had purposely asked nothing of her plans,
or so much as the date of her return to America. He had not precisely
made up his mind that they were parting for good, but he was too stunned
to forecast the future. He was stunned and sickened. He was stunned and
sickened and disconsolate to a degree beyond anything he had thought
possible in life. If it hadn't been for the bit of business that had
brought him to London he would hardly have had courage enough to get
through the days.

But, the business coming to an end, he was stranded. There was nothing
to do but go back to the wife and child whose existence he never
remembered except with a pang of self-reproach. He meant to go back to
them--but not yet. It was too soon. Edith was too much with him. The
fact that her physical presence was withdrawn made her spiritually the
more pervasive. The afterglow of their days together couldn't fade
otherwise than slowly, like light when the sun goes down.

So, when he should have been going to New York, he went to Berne. It was
not really in the hope of being face to face with her again or of having
speech with her. Even if she came there the dread presence would come
with her and keep them apart. But Berne was a little place, a quiet
place, restful, soothing, a haunt of ancient peace. It had struck him,
on former visits there, that on this spot ignored by the tourist, who
changes