ead was bowed, but his
eyes, as she entered, lifted and fixed themselves on her. There had gone
from him that air of radiant and unconquerable youth, of innocence,
expectant and alert. Instead of it he too wore the mark of experience,
of initiation that had meant torture.

"I hope," he said, "you are rested."

"Oh yes."

She stood there, weak and drooping, leaning her weight on one slender
hand, spread palm downward on the table.

He drew out a chair for her, and removed his own to the other side of
the table, keeping that barrier between them. In his whole manner there
was a terrible constraint.

"You've eaten nothing," he said.

Neither had he, she gathered, nor Jane. The trouble she had brought on
them was jarring, dislocating, like the shock of bereavement. They had
behaved as if in the presence of the beloved dead.

And yet, though he held himself apart, she knew that he had not sent for
her to cast her off; that he was yet bound to her by the mysterious,
infrangible tie; that he seemed to himself, in some way, her partner and
accomplice.

Their silence was a link that bound them, and she broke it.

"Well," she said, "you have something to say to me?"

"Yes"--his hands, spread out on the table between them, trembled--"I
have, only it seems so little----"

"Does it? Well, of course, there isn't much to be said."

"Not much. There aren't any words. Only, I don't want you to think that
I don't realise what you've done. It was magnificent."

He answered her look of stupefied inquiry.

"Your courage, Kitty, in telling me the truth."

"Oh, _that_. Don't let's talk about it."

"I am not going to talk about it. But I want you to understand that what
you told me has made no difference in my--in my feeling for you."

"It must."

"It hasn't. And it never will. And I want to know what we're going to do
next."

"Next?" she repeated.

"Yes, next. _Now._"

"I'm going away. There's nothing else left for me to do."

"And I, Kitty? Do you think I'm going to let you go, without----"

She stopped him.

"You can't help yourself."

"What? You think I'm brute enough to take everything you've given me,
and to--to let you go like this?"

His hands moved as if they would have taken hers and held them. Then he
drew back.

"There's one thing I can't do for you, Kitty. I can't marry you, because
it wouldn't be fair to my children."

"I know, Robert, I know."

"I know you know. I told you nothing would ev