egrets, for any tardy
wish expressed that things might have been different.

He offered no explanation; she expected none, would have suffered
none, crying there silently against his shoulder. But the reaction was
already invading him; the tide of self-contempt rose.

He said bitterly: "Now that I've done all the damage I could, I shall
have to go--or offer--"

"There is no damage done--yet--"

"I have made you love me."

"I--don't know. Wait."

Wet cheek against his shoulder, lips a-quiver, her tragic eyes looked
out into space seeing nothing yet except the spectre of this man's
unhappiness.

Not for herself had the tears come, the mouth quivered. The flash of
passionate emotion in him had kindled in her only a response as
blameless as it was deep.

Sorrow for him, for his passion recognised but only vaguely
understood, grief for a comradeship forever ended now--regret for the
days that now could come no more--but no thought of self as yet,
nothing of resentment, of the lesser pity, the baser pride.

If she had trembled it was for their hopeless future; if she had wept
it was because she saw his boyhood passing out of her life like a
ghost, leaving her still at heart a girl, alone beside the ashes of
their friendship.

As for marriage she knew it would never be--that neither he nor she
dared subscribe to it, dared face its penalties and its punishments;
that her fear of his unknown world was as spontaneous and abiding as
his was logical and instinctive.

There was nothing to do about it. She knew that instantly; knew it
from the first;--no balm for him, no outlook, no hope. For her--had
she thought about herself,--she could have entertained none.

She turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him out of
pitiful, curious eyes.

"Clive, must this be?"

"I love you, Athalie."

Her gaze remained fixed on him as though she were trying to comprehend
him,--sad, candid, searching in his eyes for an understanding denied
her.

"Yes," she said vaguely, "my thoughts are full of you, too. They have
always been since I first saw you. I suppose it has been love. I
didn't know it."

"Is it love, Athalie?"

"I--think so, Clive. What else could it be--when a girl is always
thinking about a man, always happy with her memories of him.... It
_is_ love, I suppose ... only I never thought of it that way."

"Can you think of it that way now?"

"I haven't changed, Clive. If it was love in the beginning, it i