agedy, after all, was not his fault, but Fate's, and to suggest that
he was accountable was to be grotesquely stupid. That he had not loved
her was the tragedy; that he had never seen was, in reality, the
tragedy's alleviation. Absurd to blame poor Gerald for not seeing. When
she spoke again it was in an altered voice.

'No, you're not,' she said, and she seemed with him to contemplate the
chasm and to make it clear for him--she had always made things clear for
him, and there was now, with all the melancholy, a peacefulness in
sharing with him this, their last, situation. Never before had they
talked over one so strange, and never again would they talk over any
other so near; to speak at last was to make it, in its very nearness,
immeasurably remote, to put it away, from both their lives, for ever.
'No, you're not; I shouldn't have said that you were not imaginative; I
shouldn't have said that you had never considered me; you have--you have
been the best of friends; I was letting myself be cruel. It's only that
_I'm_ not a fool. A woman who isn't can always keep a man from
imagining; it's the one thing that even a stupid woman can do. And my
whole nature has been moulded by the instinct for concealment.' She
looked round mechanically for a seat while she spoke; she felt horribly
tired; and she sank on a straight, high chair near the writing-table.
Here, leaning forward, her arms resting on her knees, her hands clasped
and hanging, she went on, looking before her. 'I want to tell you about
it now. There are things to confess. I haven't been a nice woman in it
all; I've not taken it as a nice woman would. I've hated you for not
loving me. I've hated you for not wanting anything more from me and for
your contentment with what I gave you, and for caring as much as you
did, too, for being fonder of me than of any one else in the world, and
yet never caring more. Of course I understood; it was a little comfort
to my pride to understand. Even if I'd been the sort of woman you would
have fallen in love with, I was too near. I had to make myself too near;
that was my shield. I had to give you everything you wanted because
that was the sure way to hide from you that I had so much more to give.
And for years I went on hoping--not that you would see--I should have
lost everything then--but that, of yourself, you would want more.'

Gerald had lifted his head, but his hand still hid his eyes. 'Helen,
dear Helen,' he said, and she did