;
more horribly ill, perhaps, than Alice. Look at Alice."

"I'm not like Alice."

"Not now. Not next year. Not for ten years, perhaps, or twenty. But
you don't know what you may be."

She raised her head.

"I shall never be like that. Never."

Rowcliffe laughed.

It struck her then that that was what she ought never to have said if
she wanted to carry out her purpose.

"When I say I'm not like Ally I mean that I'm not so dependent on
people. I'm not gentle like Ally. I'm not as loving and I'm not as
womanly. In fact, I'm not womanly at all."

"My dear child, do you suppose it matters to me what you're not, as
long as I love you as you are?"

"No," she said, "you don't love me really. You only think you do."

She clung to that.

"Why do you say that, Gwenda?"

"Because, if you did, I should have known it before now."

"Well, considering that you _do_ know it now--"

"I mean, you'd have said so before."

"I say! I like that. I'd have said so about five times if you'd ever
given me a chance."

"Oh, no. You had your chance."

"When did I have it? When?"

"The other day. Up at Bar Hill."

"You thought so then?"

"I didn't say I thought so then. I think so now."

"That's rather clever of you. Because, you see, if you thought so then
that shows--"

"What does it show?"

"Why, that you knew all the time--and that you were thinking of me.
You _did_ know. You _did_ think--"

"No. No. It's only that I've got to--that you're _making_ me think of
you now. But I'm not thinking of you the way you want."

"If you're not--if you haven't thought of me--_the way I want_--then I
can't make you out. You're beyond me."

They sat down, tired out with the struggle, as if they had reached the
same point of exhaustion at the same instant.

"Why not leave it at that?" she said.

He rallied.

"Because I can't leave it at that. You knew I cared. You must have
seen. I could have sworn you saw. I could have sworn--"

She knew what he was going to swear and she stopped him.

"I _did_ see that you thought you cared for me. If you'd been quite
sure you'd have told me. You wouldn't have waited. You're not quite
sure now. You're only telling me now because I'm going away. If I
hadn't said I was going away you'd never have told me. You'd just have
gone on waiting till you were quite sure."

She had irritated him now beyond endurance.

"Gwenda," he said savagely, "you're enough to drive a man mad."

"You've to