'Do you mean secret loving?—or parting afterwards?'
'I can see you go. I thought that you were gone. I can see you go, now.'
'Can you? I can't see myself. It will have to be secret loving, unless you will come with me.'
'We know that we must part. That is our completion. There is no choice,' she said. 'I will not go with you and have Jill left. I will not love you secretly—and part from you afterwards.—No; no! That I could not bear!' she cried passionately, startling him with the sudden cry, not looking at him.
He held himself from seizing her. 'Marthe!—Listen. My darling. It will be easier. One can die if one has lived. You don't understand. How should you?'
'I do understand. I do. I will not have it so.'
Her hand as she spoke so passionately, though in so low a tone, had clenched itself against her chest as though she drew back from an invisible antagonist. The watcher up above them must wonder to see that desperate gesture and, lifting his eyes to the window, Graham saw that it was a wonder past endurance. Madame de Lamouderie flung wide the sash. She leaned out.
'Marthe! Have you forgotten the hour? Do you not know that it is long past the time for our déjeuner!' she screamed.
Marthe Ludérac looked up at her almost unseeingly. As awareness came, it was a weary, an enduring awareness. She bowed her head, though she made
