"My dear!" he murmured. "My very dear!"
And so they remained for a little space.
Presently she lifted her face, white and strained, to his.
"Must you go, Peter?"
"Heart's beloved, there is no other way. We may not love . . . and we can't be together and not love. . . . So I must go."
She lay very still in his arms for a moment. Then he felt a long, shuddering sigh run through her body.
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes. . . . Peter, go very quickly. . . ."
He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the mouth—not passionately, but with the ineffably sad calmness of farewell.
"God keep you, dear," he said.
The door closed behind him, shutting him from her sight, and she stood for a few moments staring dazedly at its wooden panels. Then, with a sudden desperate impulse, she tore it open again and peered out.