“No, no!” she protested, “you mustn’t say that!  I needed you more than you need me.  And haven’t we both discovered the world, and renounced it?  I can at least go so far as to say that, with all my heart.  And isn’t marriage truer and higher when man and wife start with difficulties and problems to solve together?  It is that thought that brings me the greatest joy, that I may be able to help you . . . .  Didn’t you need me, just a little?”

“Now that I have you, I am unable to think of the emptiness which might have been.  You came to me, like Beatrice, when I had lost my way in the darkness of the wood.  And like Beatrice, you showed me the path, and hell and heaven.”

“Oh, you would have found the path without me.  I cannot claim that.  I saw from the first that you were destined to find it.  And, unlike Beatrice, I too was lost, and it was you who lifted me up.  You mustn’t idealize me.” . . .  She stood up.  “Come!” she said.  He too stood, gazing at her, and she lifted her hands to his shoulders . . . .  They moved out from under the tree and walked for a while in silence across the dew-drenched grass, towards Park Street.  The moon, which had ridden over a great space in the sky, hung red above the blackness of the forest to the west.

“Do you remember when we were here together, the day I met Mr. Bentley?  And you never would have spoken!”

“How could I, Alison?” he asked.

“No, you couldn’t.  And yet—­you would have let me go!”

He put his arm in hers, and drew her towards him.

“I must talk to your father,” he said, “some day—­soon.  I ought to tell him—­of our intentions.  We cannot go on like this.”

“No,” she agreed, “I realize it.  And I cannot stay, much longer, in Park Street.  I must go back to New York, until you send for me, dear.  And there are things I must do.  Do you know, even though I antagonize him so—­my father, I mean—­even though he suspects and bitterly resents any interest in you, my affection for you, and that I have lingered because of you, I believe, in his way, he has liked to have me here.”

“I can understand it,” Hodder said.

“It’s because you are bigger than I, although he has quarrelled with you so bitterly.  I don’t know what definite wrongs he has done to other persons.  I don’t wish to know.  I don’t ask you to tell me what passed between you that night.  Once you said that you had an affection for him —­that he was lonely.  He is lonely.  In these last weeks, in spite of his anger, I can see that he suffers terribly.  It is a tragedy, because he will never give in.”

“It is a tragedy.”  Hodder’s tone was agitated.

“I wonder if he realizes a little” she began, and paused.  “Now that Preston has come home—­”

“Your brother?” Hodder exclaimed.

“Yes.  I forgot to tell you.  I don’t know why he came,” she faltered.  “I suppose he has got into some new trouble.  He seems changed.  I can’t describe it now, but I will tell you about it . . . .  It’s the first time we’ve all three been together since my mother died, for Preston wasn’t back from college when I went to Paris to study . . . .”