He had laid his hand on her arm. The short, squat figure seemed to grow taller.
"You won't go."
"What? Konni is expecting me, wants to speak to me? And I am not to go?"
"I say again, 'You won't go.' If you are the plucky girl I take you for, you will not spoil your work of sacrifice. For, depend upon it, if once he sees you again you'll hang on to each other for evermore."
The straw hat slipped from her hand.
"Then ... tell him ... I shall always love him, always and always, that he will be my last thought on earth.... And ... I don't know what else to say."
He silently made his way out of the room.
And then she broke down.
CHAPTER XXII
The world wagged on, calmly, merrily, busily, as if nothing had happened, as if nowhere on the ocean of life a lost happiness was drifting every minute farther and farther away, as if no forsaken and abandoned human child cowered in a corner, staring with despairing eyes helplessly at the floor.