Reggie paused.
"That is not all," said Gertrude.
The suspense was over, and despair is as calm or calmer than joy.
"I couldn't leave her like that," he went on. "I could not hate her utterly at the first moment that I knew I loved her, and I wrote to her asking her forgiveness, and she told me—she wrote to me, that she never would see me again, that I had behaved unpardonably. She made me angry. And I came straight off here the same day."
"And now?" asked Gertrude.
"God only knows what now," said he, leaning his head on his hands.
There was a long silence, and the babble of laughter and talk came to them from the lawn, which was filling fast. Then Reggie heard Gertrude's voice, very low and very tender, speaking to him,—
"Poor Reggie, poor dear boy. I am very sorry for you."
She laid her hand on his knee, and then, drawing closer to him, as he sat with down-bent head, leaned forward to kiss him. But in a moment she recollected herself, and by an effort of supremest delicacy, before he was conscious what she had intended, drew back with one long look at him, in which her soul said "Farewell."