"No."
"You will, later.... You will live here, with the children; you will see me hardly at all. I shall not see the children for a time. It will be as though I were on a journey. They are so small: oh, I hope that they won't miss me and that, when they do see me again, they will know me!... So you will be alone ... with the children ... It may be that you will want me back then, that the former love will return.... In my case too, perhaps.... We shall see. It will ... it will all come of itself and we ... we know nothing.... Perhaps, in years to come, we shall be living quietly together again ... with the children. Or else...."
"What?"
"Or else you will be far away from me ... and will have found your happiness with another."
She put her hands before her eyes:
"I don't see it.... I don't know...."
"Now you are being honest. No, you don't know if you will come to care so much as that for Johan.... And I ... I will be honest too! I don't know if I shall ever care for you again.... But we must wait, Tilly; and the best thing therefore is to leave each other and ... and not to talk to each other again until it has come of itself and until we know.... You will not be alone in the world; for, if ever I can do anything for you, I will come to you. I shall never forget you."
"Yes, perhaps that will be best," she said, in a dead voice. "I shall try to look at it like that ... and to live alone ... with the children. I shall not see Johan again."
"No, no, on the contrary: you must see him."
"Why?"