It was agreed, when they parted, that he should rejoin her six weeks later
in Venice. There they were to talk about the book.


III

_Lago d'Iseo, August 14th_.

When I said good-by to you yesterday I promised to come back to Venice in
a week: I was to give you your answer then. I was not honest in saying
that; I didn't mean to go back to Venice or to see you again. I was
running away from you--and I mean to keep on running! If _you_ won't, _I_
must. Somebody must save you from marrying a disappointed woman of--well,
you say years don't count, and why should they, after all, since you are
not to marry me?

That is what I dare not go back to say. _You are not to marry me_. We have
had our month together in Venice (such a good month, was it not?) and now
you are to go home and write a book--any book but the one we--didn't talk
of!--and I am to stay here, attitudinizing among my memories like a sort
of female Tithonus. The dreariness of this enforced immortality!

But you shall know the truth. I care for you, or at least for your love,
enough to owe you that.

You thought it was because Vincent Rendle had loved me that there was so
little hope for you. I had had what I wanted to the full; wasn't that what
you said? It is just when a man begins to think he understands a woman
that he may be sure he doesn't! It is because Vincent Rendle _didn't love
me_ that there is no hope for you. I never had what I wanted, and never,