She smiled--a wan, strained smile. "I won't try to keep you, Piers, if you want to go, but--I can't pretend! Letters can never make up. I have been happy--happier than I even thought I could be; but Jean was right, Robert was right--it has not been fair to you. I should not have consented, but I loved you so; I was so tempted. Even now I am not sorry. No; I am _not_ sorry! Even if I never see you again, I have had these years--six years of happiness and love, and you are still young, you have your life ahead--" He stopped her with his lips on hers. "You don't meant it, you don't believe it. Don't hurt me, my heart! Be generous; be patient; and I'll come back more your own than ever. It's because I love you--because I love you--." That was the strain which he dinned into her ears--the one fundamental fact on which all arguments hung; but Vanna's sore heart could find in it no solid comfort. A love which finds separation easier than loving intercourse is incomprehensible to a woman's mind. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. MARKING TIME. Robert and Jean were not surprised. That was the fact which, for Vanna, stood out in conspicuous relief. They were grieved, sympathetic, unspeakably tender towards her; but she divined that if they felt any surprise, it was not that Piers had found his present position untenable, but rather that he should have been able to endure it so long. That they should feel so, who were her dearest, most admiring friends, planted a sharp stab in Vanna's heart, yet it was to them that she owed what poor comfort was to be found during the long intolerable weeks before Piers's departure. Jean said little. In her own hour of blackness she had discovered the futility of words, but in a hundred quiet, exquisitely tactful ways she forced upon Vanna the importance of what remained: of the place which she occupied in so many lives; of her own love and need. "You will never know what you have been to me, Vanna! I have often wanted to tell you; but it isn't easy to speak of these things. I think after one has married and settled down, one needs a woman friend more than ever. There is so much that even the best and tenderest of men can't understand. You've been my safety-valve and my prop. Multiply my gratitude by the number of all the poor souls whom you have nursed and tended, and you will realise your riches. Thoughts _help_, Vanna--I'm convinced of that--loving, thankful thoughts going out towards you from all parts of the land. It's impossible that your life should be cold or bald--" "Is it, Jean, is it? It sounds very sweet, dear, and very lofty; but put yourself in my place. Would all the gratitude in the world cheer you if Robert went away?" The colour flooded Jean's face, then slowly ebbed away, leaving her pale and wan.