ed to me. Yet the true solution was as far from me
as ever. Indeed, I could not well have been further from it than at that
moment.

As we walked back, Natalie made two or three unsuccessful attempts to
lure me out of the silence which was certainly more eloquent on my part
than any words I could have used. Once she commenced:

"It is hard to explain--"

I interrupted her harshly. "No explanation is possible."

On that she put her handkerchief to her eyes, and a half-suppressed sob
shook her slight figure. Her grief distracted me. But what could I say
to assuage it?

At the hall door I stopped and said, "Good-bye."

"Are you not coming in?"

There was a directness and emphasis in the question which did not escape
me.

"I?" The horror in my own voice surprised myself, and assuredly did not
pass without her notice.

"Very well; good-bye. We are not exactly slaves of convention here, but
you are too far advanced in that direction even for me. This is your
second startling departure from us. I trust you will spare me the
humiliation entailed by the condescension of your further acquaintance."

"Give me an hour!" I exclaimed aghast. "You do not make allowance for
the enigma in which everything is wrapped up. I said I was your friend
when I thought you of good report. Give me an hour--only an hour--to say
whether I will stand by my promise, now that you yourself have claimed
that your report is not good but evil. For that is really what you have
protested. Do I ask too much? or is your generosity more limited even
than my own?"

"Ah, no! I would not have you think that. Take an hour, or a year--an
hour only if you care for my happiness."

"Agreed," said I. "I will take the hour. Discretion can have the year."

So I left her. I could not go indoors. A roof would smother me. Give me
the open lawns, the leafy woods, the breath of the summer wind. Away,
then, to the silence of the coming night. For an hour leave me to my
thoughts. Her unworthiness was now more than suspected. It was admitted.
My misery was complete. But I would not part with her; I could not.
Innocent or guilty, she was mine. I must suffer with her or for her. The
resolution by which I have abided was formed as I wandered lonely
through the woods.

When I reached my room that night I found a note from Brande. To receive
a letter from a man in whose house I was a guest did not surprise me. I
was past that stage. There was nothing mysterious in th