He held out his hand. She took it. Her tears fell upon it. She did not speak as he went to the door. Then she gave a cry like the cry of a wounded animal. She held out her hands to him.
“Not yet! Not yet!” she said.
She flung herself into his arms, kissing him and kissing him, holding him to her with her arms about his neck.
“Good-by! Good-by, my darling, my best beloved. Oh, go! Go, Herbert, before I die in your arms. Go!”
She was lying along the floor with her head on the sofa.
He was gone.
She looked wildly around the room, wiping the tears from her eyes. She sprang to her feet, crying:
“Come back! Come back to me, my beloved! Oh, I was a fool! Such a fool as women are when they think of such things as heaven and truth and right! A fool! A fool!”
An hour afterward Ella called to say good-by to her. She was going to Switzerland first, she said, to a quiet spot that she knew, where she might think out some of the details of the Church. Mr. Holland would meet her in Italy in the winter to consider some of the architectural details.
When the hour of her departure was at hand she referred to another matter—a matter on which she spoke much more seriously than she had yet spoken on the subject of the Church.