She could find no relief in thought or feeling. He sat quite still in his pet chair, the traces of those unashamed tears still on his cheeks, staring at the rug; and as she watched him, she saw a terror opening before her, a gray desolation. The familiar room, the afternoon sunlight in squares on the carpet, the faint rattle of a wind-stirred blind—all the old familiar things were there. But in the half of an hour, the soul of them was changed past any recall of hers.
She tried once, timidly, desperately, “But if she _gave_ it to you. . .”
He answered quickly, “For that! Just for that. I shall have no right to the loan any longer.” He looked at her quietly. And she spoke, answering something his eyes had said rather than his lips.
“I see. And nothing I can say will make you look at it differently. . .”
“No. I don’t think it will, Guida. I’ve had a long time to think things out, you see.”
The familiar room, the familiar figure, Guida saw them as in a glass darkly. She knew it was no use fighting. Something confronted her which was implacable by words or tears or prayers; implacable as death, yet wearing the bright face of life and love.
He was watching her, with infinite kindness, from that great and starry distance. “I didn’t do wrong to tell you, did I?” he asked gently. “There was more or less of an unspoken compact—we always talked out our philosophies. How thin they seem—now. . . . And I thought you wouldn’t—grieve—when it comes. . . If I could show you that grief was—would be—out of place.”
She bent her head and after a minute asked calmly, “when do you go?”
“This evening.” And afterwards she could remember no interval between his saying so and his rising to go. A few more brief sentences, broken words of courage that were on a thousand lips; then he was at the door, turning with a smile. She did not press him to stay. Life was going with him; but better it should go, she thought. She knew afterwards that he had held her hands, kissed her once, and blessed her for “the truest friend ever man had.” But all the time their souls were divided by a barrier of great and shining things in which she had no share.
For a moment that light seemed to include her as she defied it, to shine on her too. Then it was gone with him, and the door closed.
