I got to my feet in silence. Something had happened that I could not help; and as I stood there, I knew that my world had come to an end, and as in the first shock of a physical injury, felt numbly conscious of the deliberate suffering that was to follow. She had risen too, looking somehow curiously small and frail. Then, of a sudden, my manhood caught at me. The wall was without seam or crevice, darkening the sky; and I knew that I could break it with a breath.
"I will go," I said, "when I am sure. Look at me, Lady, for you know that I know."
There was a sharp snap. She glanced at her hands, then dropped the broken paper knife at her feet and faced me haughtily. "Know?" she said, with a dry tension in her voice, "I only know that this is to be good-by." She held out a rigid hand.
I took it and stood looking soberly down at her.
"Is that all?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered. "Don't make it hard for me." Then her eyes grew suddenly afraid. She caught away her hand and shrank back a step, catching at the chain about her throat.
"Oh, don't, don't," she begged. "Please, please go—you don't understand."
I held myself with all my strength. "No, I don't understand," I whispered.
She caught her breath with half a sob, forlornly and as a child might.
"You must not understand. You are never to see me again."