“Yes,” said Miss Mason.
Sybil looked again at the picture of the child.
“I suppose I oughtn’t to ask,” she said, “but it would remind me. I don’t want to forget now. Not that I ever shall.”
“I’ll send it to you,” said Miss Mason. “Barnabas won’t mind, will you, Barnabas? Just a gift from an old friend, you know.”
Sybil’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you,” she said. Then she bent and kissed Pippa. “Good-bye, little one.”
Barnabas went to the door with her.
“I couldn’t stay any longer,” she said. “Good-bye.”
And she went away in the sunshine, past the little faun in the next garden, and so out of the courtyard, and out of the lives she had momentarily entered.
When she had disappeared Barnabas looked at the little faun.
“It was the only way,” he said. And his heart was sad for the man who had been forgotten by the woman he had loved. And he wondered if he knew everything now. If he did he would probably understand so fully that he would forgive fully. And then Barnabas went back into the studio.