She looked troubled, but she could not send him away. He clambered over the low paling, and, pushing back the boughs of the shrubs which grew between them, made his way up the bank to her side.
"Have you been away?" she asked.
"Yes, I have been home. Home," he repeated bitterly. "I have wandered through the woods, and I have climbed the hills where we spent our childhood. I have looked upon the old scenes, and my heart is broken."
Her eyes filled with tears. For a moment her thoughts, too, went back to the days when they had been children together, and he had been her hero brother. How time had changed them both, and how far apart they had drifted. They could never be the same again. She knew it quite well. There had grown up a great barrier between them. She could not even pretend to sympathize with him, although her heart was still full of pity.
"Leonardo, I am sorry," she whispered. "How is it, I wonder, that all through life you seem to have set your heart upon things which are impossible."
"It is fate!"
"Fate! But you are a man, and man should control fate."
"Have I not tried?" he answered bitterly. "Tell me, do I so easily relinquish my great desire? Why am I here? Because I have said to myself that I will not be denied. Adrienne shall be mine!"
She looked at him steadily.
"We have not met, Leonardo, since the night after the concert. Do you know that we had an adventure on the way home?"