I know. Do you think it was necessary to tell me? Do you suppose my
mind left you for a moment last night, and that I know and love you so
little that I failed to imagine and understand in a single particular?
If I were less of a man and more of a god, I should go to you and give
you the help you need, but I am only strong enough to keep away from
you. Not in thought, however,--if that is any help.

We shall meet in public and speak together. I have no desire to forget
you nor that you should forget me. We neither of us shall forget, but
we shall live and endure, as the strongest of us always do. You tell
me that you are tormented by the thought that you have added to my
trials. Remember that all other trials sink into insignificance beside
this, and yet that this greatest that has come to me in a long life is
glorified by the fact of its existence. And if it is almost a relief
to know that I shall not see you alone again, it is a satisfaction and
a joy to remember that I have kissed you. R.N.




VIII



For a few days Betty was almost happy again. She had come so close to
the nucleus of love that it had warmed her veins and intoxicated her
brain. Imagination for a brief moment had given place to reality, and
if she felt wiser and older still than after her five months of
meditation on the events of the summer, she felt less sober. One great