“Good-by,” said Josephine Balsamo once more.
He hesitated before this hand stretched out to him in final farewell.
“Won’t you shake hands with me?” she said.
“Yes ... yes....” he murmured. “But why should we separate?”
“Because we no longer have anything to say to one another,” she said sadly.
“Nothing indeed; and yet we never have said anything,” said he.
He took her warm and supple little hand in his and said:
“What those men said?... Their accusations in the garden of that inn?... Was it true?”
He craved some explanation, lie though it might be, which should permit him to retain some doubt.
But with an air of surprise she answered: “What on earth does that matter to you?”