It is the hope I gave you that must make this seem so sudden and so cruel.' He had not felt her cruel, but he had felt something that was now giving his eyes their melancholy directness of gaze.

He was looking at his Althea; he was not judging her; but he was wishing that she had been able to think of him a little more as mere friend, a little more as the man who, after all, had loved her all these years; wishing that she had not so completely forgotten him, so completely relegated and put him away when her new life was coming to her.

But he understood, he did not judge, and he answered, 'I don't think you've been cruel, Althea dear, though it's been rather cruel of fortune, if you like, to arrange it in just this way.

As for hurting my life, you've been the most beautiful thing in it.' Something in his voice, final acceptance, final resignation, as though, seeing her go for ever, he bowed his head in silence, filled her with intolerable sadness.

Was it that she wanted still to need him, or was it that she could not bear the thought that he might, some day, no longer need her?
The sense of an end of things, chill and penetrating like an autumnal wind, made all life seem bleak and grey for the moment.