"You, madame?"
"I, monsieur."
"What does this mean?"
She walked across and took his hand, holding it tightly between both her own.
"Only this, dear," she whispered, "we have had our dream, and now the awakening comes. It was all my fault, and you must leave me, and forget we ever met—but, no, do not forget; remember me as the wickedest woman whom you have ever known. The one who falsely won your love, and then spurned it, and left you with only a bitter knowledge of the evil of the world."
"You mean that you have fooled me, and do not love me?" he said, stonily.
"Yes, I have fooled you," she answered, and she seemed to shrink beneath the lie that her love told her would teach him the sooner to forget.
"And you do not love me?" he repeated, his face growing gray in the glowing sunlight.
"I do not love you," she answered, and the boy believed her.
"Good-bye," he said; "shall I murmur my gratitude for the few hours of happiness in my fool's paradise?"