free.

"I'll be back for you, then, at three," he said. "Will you be ready?"

As casually, it came to him, just as calmly he might have discussed his
plan with any man.

"At three," she repeated. "I'll be ready."

He left her, not as happy as when he had sped up the stairs; left her
demoralized now. In the interlude before his return she sat motionless,
her mind a tumult of doubt.

She too had dreamed what that embrace would be; she had wanted always to
be near him, yet she had just shrunk from it.

"Who am I to dictate such terms to life?" Felicity had demanded.

"And who was she," in all that long month Cecille had been asking of
herself, "who was _she_? And what was she waiting for?"

Even a percentage of happiness, Felicity had preached, would be less
unendurable than no happiness--ever--at all; and she had at last
convinced herself that this was so. Yet now she shook with doubt. Was
this dead thing the actuality which at any price she had hoped to save?

Once she was very close to flight; more than once, more childishly than
she knew, she wished that she would die.

But she kept to her promise and waited; she was ready and went with him
at three, though after he had put her in the taxi and climbed in beside
her, she found it difficult to breathe. She could not have forced words
from her throat had she wanted to, and he was as silent as she. For at
the end of hours he had hit upon an explanation of this mood of hers, her
trouble, and it was troubling him deeply, too. Two or three times,
watching her still face and quiet hands, it had been upon the tip of his
tongue to tell her that after all they could still abandon his plan.

He had not offered to kiss her again, nor even reached for her hand, and
she had been grateful for this, almost hysterically grateful as she
recalled the little opportunities which she had once contrived for just
such contacts. And the taxi was not merely stifling; it was like a trap.
The seat was far too narrow. Even though she huddled into her corner the
six inches of clear space which separated them was all too brief.

So they rode south, both unhappier with every turn of the wheels, till
suddenly he saw her hands tighten into fists, and her lips begin to move.

"I can't," was what he made of that whisper. "Oh, ask him to
stop--please--please!"

He did not question her; her face was enough. The cab pulled up to the
curb. She flung open the door and started to g