He rose too, stiffly, and, taking her hand, held it while he looked into her face steadily.
"Good-by, Miss Shepherd--I'm--I'm sorry it has to be that--but you know best. And thank you for telling me--so much." He paused, and his hand tightened on hers a little. "Thanks all round, for that! It has been the truth between us, hasn't it, always? And so--though it has been a bit rough--Good-by!"
There was a pause, a curious pause.
"Good-by," she echoed dully, her face grown very pale. His hand left hers gently. She turned and faced the garden, where the shadows were invading the blaze of colour, and the coming cool was sending the scent of the orange-blossoms into the air. The water-maze, with its marble ledges, where there was but room for the feet of a laughing girl, lay still and glistening before her. The palace, with its fanciful nooks, its illogical recesses, its suggestion of elusive pleasures beyond the pale of solid reality, rose up into the sky.
And something in the scene came home to her with the sense that all this, in its way, was real also. That this was part of the truth. The truth which she had not told.
"It has been the truth between us, hasn't it, always?"
She turned suddenly to where Lance stood; turned to find him leaning over the balcony, looking down into the water with a listlessness he had held in check till then; and a great wave of remorse swept through her.
"It has not been the truth between us!" she cried impulsively, recklessly--"not quite--but, I will tell it now--if you like."
He looked up, startled. "If you think I--I ought to know."
She gave a queer, half-impatient laugh. "Ought! How do I know? Yes! I suppose so--as it's true--absolutely true. I can't help that, can I?"