He still did not speak.

“But it is not for those others that I plead,” she continued.  “I plead for myself.  I can’t spare you, indeed, indeed I can’t spare you! . . .”

Her voice trembled, but she went on bravely: 

“So you will go back to the mountains,” she said.  “You will live out your life like a man.  Others may prove themselves cowards, but the Disagreeable Man has a better part to play.”

He still did not speak.  Was it that he could not trust himself to words?  But in that brief time, the thoughts which passed through his mind were such as to overwhelm him.  A picture rose up before him:  a picture of a man and woman leading their lives together, each happy in the other’s love; not a love born of fancy, but a love based on comradeship and true understanding of the soul.  The picture faded, and the Disagreeable Man raised his eyes and looked at the little figure standing near him.

“Little child, little child,” he said wearily, “since it is your wish, I will go back to the mountains.”

Then he bent over the counter, and put his hand on hers.

“I will come and see you to-morrow,” he said.  “I think there are one or two things I want to say to you.”

The next moment he was gone.

In the afternoon of that same day Bernardine went to the City.  She was not unhappy:  she had been making plans for herself.  She would work hard, and fill her life as full as possible.  There should be no room for unhealthy thought.  She would go and spend her holidays in Petershof.  There would be pleasure in that for him and for her.  She would tell him so to-morrow.  She knew he would be glad.

“Above all,” she said to herself, “there shall be no room for unhealthy thought.  I must cultivate my garden.”

That was what she was thinking of at four in the afternoon:  how she could best cultivate her garden.

At five she was lying unconscious in the accident-ward of the New Hospital:  she had been knocked down by a waggon, and terribly injured.

She will not recover, the Doctor said to the nurse.  “You see she is sinking rapidly.  Poor little thing!”

At six she regained consciousness, and opened her eyes.  The nurse bent over her.  Then she whispered: 

“Tell the Disagreeable Man how I wish I could have seen him to-morrow.  We had so much to say to each other.  And now . . .”

The brown eyes looked at the nurse so entreatingly.  It was a long time before she could forget the pathos of those brown eyes.

A few minutes later, she made another sign as though she wished to speak.  Nurse Katharine bent nearer.  Then she whispered: 

“Tell the Disagreeable Man to go back to the mountains, and begin to build his bridge:  it must be strong and . . .”

Bernardine died.

CHAPTER V.

THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE.