“I’m going to-morrow.” Her voice was steady, but quite colourless. “René,” stammered her friend, “René is going to-morrow?” “Yes. Into the country for a few days, for the background of his new picture.” François drew up a chair, and sat down close to her. “Anne,” he began gently, “There hasn’t been anything? Any...?” She shook her head. “Nothing. But it’s coming. This has been in my mind for weeks. It was there though I scarcely knew it, before you wanted me to sit to you. When you asked me, I knew certainly.” The spring twilight lingered in the studio, and he could still see her face, white against the cushion he had put into the chair. As he listened to her quiet low voice, all she was saying seemed to him like the illusion of a dream. _Anne_ to be talking of leaving René! It was an absurd hallucination on his part--a trick of his imagination. “But René?” he asked nevertheless. “He doesn’t know? Why, I saw him early this morning, and he spoke of you----” For the first time, her voice trembled, and he watched her slim hands travelling aimlessly over the frills on her dress. “He doesn’t know,” she said. “That’s why I’m telling you.” There was a long silence, and he saw her fighting for composure. “François,” she began at last in a whisper. “He won’t understand at first. He’ll think me cruel, and wicked and inexplicable.” She caught her breath, but went on bravely. “You are far sighted too. You know as well as I do, the woman who will--who will---- “He doesn’t know it yet himself. He still loves me. Now, to-day. And that’s why I’m going. I couldn’t bear.... He must be quite free. It was only on those terms I agreed with myself to--to----” She was shivering now from head to foot, and the words came in gasps like the words of a dying woman. “It has lasted for three years, and I thought it might only be three months. I have had quite ... quite a long life, François.” He turned away so that he should not see her smile. “I’m not going to be coward enough to spoil it--for both of us,” she went on after minutes which seemed like hours. François had been mechanically counting the strokes of the clock which ticked maddeningly in the gloom. He had never noticed it before, and was seized with a sudden mad desire to smash it into fragments. “But I want you,--will you, François?--in a little while, when he will listen, to say what you can for me?” He got up, and began to walk about the room, stumbling against the chairs in the way. At last he turned abruptly, and stood before her. “Must you, Anne?” His voice was an entreaty. It shook almost as much as her own. She got up slowly, and gave him both hands. “Good-bye, François.” He held them close, without speaking.