Her voice answered him out of the shadow: "It is only you who
make a reason why. I'd give anything to be friends with you;
you've always known that."

"Why can't we be?" he said, sharply and loudly. "I've changed a
great deal. I'm very sensible, and I'll never bother you again
-- that other way. Why shouldn't I see a little of you?"

I heard her laugh then--happily, it seemed to me,--and I
thought I perceived her to extend her hand to him, and that he
shook it briefly, in his fashion, as if it had been the hand of
a man and not that of the beautiful lady.

"You know I should like nothing better in the world--since you
tell me what you do," she answered.

"And the other man?" he asked her, with the same hinting of
sharpness in his tone. "Is that all settled?"

"Almost. Would you like me to tell you?"

"Only a little--please!"

His voice had dropped, and he spoke very quietly, which
startlingly caused me to realize what I was doing. I went out of
hearing then, very softly. Is it creible that I found myself
trembling when I reached the twilit piazza? It is true, and I
knew that never, for one moment, since that tragic, divine day
of her pity, had I wholly despaired of beholding her again; that
in my most sorrowful time there had always been a little, little