He turned away so that he should not see her smile.
“I’m not going to be coward enough to spoil it—for both of us,” she went on after minutes which seemed like hours. François had been mechanically counting the strokes of of the clock which ticked maddeningly in the gloom. He had never noticed it before, and was seized with a sudden mad desire to smash it into fragments.
“But I want you,—will you, François?—in a little while, when he will listen, to say what you can for me?”
He got up, and began to walk about the room, stumbling against the chairs in the way.
At last he turned abruptly, and stood before her.
“Must you, Anne?” His voice was an entreaty. It shook almost as much as her own.
She got up slowly, and gave him both hands.
“Good-bye, François.”
He held them close, without speaking.
“I shall write to you,” she said, “—later on. I’m going to be a great traveller. You will hear of me from—from all sorts of wonderful places. And I shall see you again, my dear friend. But I don’t think I shall ever see——” she stopped, and he felt her hands shaking in his.