I should not take it. With my poor little permissionnaire; no. But there might have been another man.' And now her eyes met Jill's and the pale, violent blush that Jill had seen before suddenly swept like a tide, from brow to chin, over her silver face. 'I have often longed for love,' she said, looking steadily at Jill. 'Passionately I have longed. Can you imagine what it is to have a heart full of love and always, everywhere, to find oneself shunned? Animals are all that I have ever had. That is why I am perhaps a little foolish about them. There is so much to give, and they must receive it all.'
'But I am here now,' said Jill in a trembling voice. She felt as if she were adrift on a stormy sea. 'I mean—you are loved now. Anyone who knows you must love you:—and you are known.' And as she heard herself say these stumbling words the very air seemed loud with an unuttered name.
And as if she heard it—or feared too much to hear it—Marthe Ludérac rose and said, rapidly, impetuously: 'I wish you had never come to Buissac. I wish you had never seen me. I mean sorrow only;—sorrow; sorrow,' she repeated, fiercely. 'It is the worst of all;—worse than being always alone;—to feel that one can only bring sorrow to those one loves.' She walked away down the woodland path, and it was as if she were leaving Jill for ever, lest she should hear that name.
Jill followed her. 'But you don't, you don't,' she said. She hardly knew what she was saying. 'And if
