can't help it if he does; we've got to do it."

Lucy nodded, understanding. "I know. In thinking about you lately, I've
known it was coming to this, rather soon. I didn't quite know when. But
I knew you must have a good time."

After a little while she went on, and her clear voice fell strange and
tranquil on the soft wood silence:

"What I didn't quite know was whether you would come and take it--the
good time--or whether I should have to come and bring it to you. I was
going to have come, you know. I had quite settled that. It's taken me
a long time to know that I must: but I do know it now."

"You didn't come," said Peter suddenly, and his hands clenched sharply
over the ivy trails and tore them out of the earth, and his face whitened
to the lips. "All this time ... you didn't come ... you kept away...."
The memory of that black emptiness shook him. He hadn't realised till it
was nearly over quite how bad it had been, that emptiness.

The two pale faces, so like, were quivering with the same pain, the same
keen recognition of it.

"No," Lucy whispered. "I didn't come ... I kept away."

Peter said, steadying his voice, "But now you will. Now I may come to
you. Oh, I know why you kept away. You thought it would be less hard for
me if I didn't see you. But don't again. It isn't less hard. It's--it's
impossible. First Denis, then you. I can't bear it. I only want to see
you sometimes; just to feel you're there. I won't be grasping, Lucy."