ay. Sylvia, I would give anything to keep
her."

Still he was not thinking of her, and knowing that, she came close
to him and put her arm in his. She longed to give him some feeling of
comradeship. She could be sisterly to him over this without suggesting
to him what she could not be to him. Her instinct had divined right,
and she felt the answering pressure of his elbow that acknowledged her
sympathy, welcomed it, and thought no more about it.

"You are giving everything to keep her," she said. "You are giving
yourself. What further gift is there, Michael?"

He kept her arm close pressed by him, and she knew by the frankness of
that holding caress he was thinking of her still either not at all, or,
she hoped, as a comrade who could perhaps be of assistance to courage
and clear-sightedness in difficult hours. She wanted to be no more than
that to him just now; it was the most she could do for him, but with
a desire, the most acute she had ever felt for him, she wanted him to
accept that--to take her comradeship as he would have surely taken her
brother's. Once, in the last intimate moments they had had together, he
had refused to accept that attitude from her--had felt it a relationship
altogether impossible. She had seen his point of view, and recognised
the justice of the embarrassment. Now, very simply but very eagerly,
she hoped, as with some tugging strain, that he would not reject it. She
knew she had missed this brother, who had refused to be brother to her.
But he had been about his own business, and he had been doing his own
business, with a quiet splendour that drew her eyes to him, and as they
stood there, thus linked, she wondered if her heart was following. . . .
She had seen, last December, how reasonable it was of him to refuse this
domestic sort of intimacy with her; now, she found herself intensely
longing that he would not persist in his refusal.

Suddenly Michael awoke to the fact of her presence, and abruptly he
moved away from her.

"Thanks, Sylvia," he said. "I know I have your--your good wishes.
But--well, I am sure you understand."

She understood perfectly well. And the understanding of it cut her to
the quick.

"Have you got any right to behave like that to me, Michael?" she asked.
"What have I done that you should treat me quite like that?"

He looked at her, completely recalled in mind to her alone. All the
hopes and desires of the autumn smote him with encompassing blows.

"Yes,