“Not so very,” Clara replied languidly.  “I guessed that they had quarrelled.  And I had a strong suspicion,” she added consciously, “that it was about us.”

“I wonder,” Peachy said somberly, “what would have happened if we had taken Julia’s advice.”

“Are you sorry, Peachy?” Julia asked.

“No, I’m not sorry exactly,” Peachy answered slowly.  “I have Angela, of course.  Are you sorry, Julia?”

“No,” replied Julia.

“Julia,” Peachy said, “what was it changed you?  I have always wanted to ask but I have never dared.  What brought you to the island finally?  What made you give up the fight with us?”

The far-away look in Julia’s eyes grew, if possible, more far-away.  She did not speak for a while.  Then, “I’ll tell you,” she said simply.  “It is something that I have never told anybody but Billy.  When you first began to leave me to come to this island alone, I was very unhappy.  And I grew more and more unhappy.  I missed flying with you.  And especially flying by night.  Flying alone seemed melancholy.  I came here at first, only because I was driven by my loneliness.  I said to myself that I’d drift with the current.  But that did not help any.  You were all so interested in your lovers that it made no difference whether I was with you or not.  I began to think that you no longer cared for me, that you had out-grown me, that all my influence over you had vanished, that, if I were out of the way, the one tie which held you to me would break and you would go to these men.  I grew more and more unhappy every instant.  That was not all.  I was in love with Billy, but I did not know it.  I only knew that I was moody and strange and in desperate despair.  And, so, one day I decided to kill myself.”

There was a faint movement in the group, but it was only the swish of draperies as the four recumbent women came upright.  They stared at Julia.  They did not speak.  They seemed scarcely to breathe.

“One day, I flew up and up.  Never before had I gone half so high.  But I flew deliberately higher and higher until I became cold and colder and numb and frozen — until my wings stopped.  And then — " She paused.

“What happened?” Clara asked breathlessly.

“I dropped.  I dropped like a stone.  But — but — the instant I let myself go, something strange happened — a miracle of self-revelation.  I knew that I loved Billy, that I could not live in any world where he could not come to me.  And the instant that I realized that I loved him, I knew also that I could not die.  I tried to spread my wings but they would not open.  It was terrific.  And that sense of despair, that my wings which had always responded — would not — now — oh, that was hell.  How I fought!  How I struggled!  It was as though iron bands were about me.  I strained.  I tore.  Of course, all this was only a moment.  But one thinks a million things in a moment like that — one lives a thousand years.  It seemed an eternity.  At last my wings opened and spread.  They held.  I floated until I caught my breath.  Then I dropped slowly.  I threw myself over the bough of a tree.  I lay there.”