nd
all that."

Hilda smiled and turned away. If he choose, it was his opportunity to
go, but he stood regarding her, twirling his hat. She sat down, clasping
her knees, and looked at the floor. There was a square of sunlight on
the carpet, and motes were rising in it.

"Ah well, so did I," she said meditatively, without raising her eyes.
Then she leaned back in the chair and looked at him, in her level simple
way.

"It was a foolish theory," she said, "and--now--I can't understand it at
all. I am amazed to find that it even holds good with you."

It was so much in the tone of their usual discussions that Arnold was
conscious of a lively relief. The instinct of flight died down in him,
he looked at her with something like inquiry.

"It will always be to me curious," she went on, "that you could have
thought your part in me so limited, so poor. That is enough to say. I
find it hard to understand, anybody would, that you could take so much
pleasure in me and not--so much more." She opened her lips again, but
kept back the words. "Yes," she added, "that is enough to say."

But for her colourless face and the tenseness about her lips it might
have been thought that she definitely abandoned what she had learned she
could not have. There was a note of acquiescence and regret in her
voice, of calm reason above all; and this sense reached him, induced him
to listen, as he generally listened, for anything she might find that
would explain the situation. His fingers went from habit, as a man might
play with his watch-chain, to the symbol of his faith; her eyes followed
them, and rested mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feeling
in them, wistful, acknowledging, deeply speculative. "You could not
forget that?" she said, and shook her head as if she answered herself.
He looked into her upturned face and saw that her eyes were swimming.

"Never!" he said, "Never," but he walked to the nearest chair and sat
down. He seemed suddenly aware that he need not go away, and his head,
as it rose in the twilight against the window, was grave and calm.
Without a word a great tenderness filled the space between them; an
interpreting compassion went to and fro. Suddenly a new light dawned in
Hilda's eyes; she leaned forward and met his in an absorption which
caught them out of themselves into some space where souls wander, and
perhaps embrace. The moment died away, neither of them could have
measured it, and when it had finally