"Of course! We have always been friends—we must always be friends." "Thank you, dear. That is a great deal to me. No other woman will ever come into my life." "Don’t!" she exclaimed, painfully moved. "You make me feel that I have spoilt your life." "But you haven’t, Nora. You are just the only woman I could ever have loved, and if I had not met you I should be even lonelier than I am. At least I have your friendship." His tone was composed, almost cheerful, but she felt that he was at the end of his strength, and when, after a quick pressure of the hand, he went towards the door, she made no effort to recall him. Her own voice was strangled, and perhaps her face revealed more than she knew, more than she was actually conscious of feeling—a regret, an appeal, an almost childish loneliness. As though answering an unexpected cry of pain, he turned suddenly and looked at her. He saw the all-betraying tears, and the next minute he had come back to her side and had taken her hands and kissed them. "You must not!" he said gently. "You are to be happy—as I am. Forgive me; it is the seal upon our friendship—and a farewell." She had not resisted. She would have forgiven him, because she understood; she would have put the moment’s surrender to passion from her memory as something pardoned, but fate took the power of forgiving and forgetting from her. For the door had opened, and Miles stood on the threshold, watching them with an expression of blank amazement on his flushed, excited face. Arnold turned, too late conscious that they were not alone, and Miles’s amazement changed to a loud delight. "If it isn’t old Arnold!" he exclaimed, flinging coat and hat on to the nearest chair and stretching out an unsteady hand. "Why, we thought you were dead and buried in some African wilderness, didn’t we, Nora?" "You were not far wrong, then," Arnold answered. "I was pretty well done for once, and am only just beginning to feel that I really belong to this world again." He had recovered his self-possession with an effort, and he went on quickly, almost as though he were afraid of Miles’s next words: "I was on my way home, and took Berlin as a break. Of course I had to come and see you all." Miles nodded. "Decent of you," he said thickly. "Nora will be glad to have you in this foreign hole. It’s a sickening shame——" He stumbled and reeled up against Arnold with an impatient curse. The momentary excitement over the unexpected arrival had passed, leaving him bemuddled, in a dull but unmistakable state of intoxication. Arnold took him by the arm and helped him to the nearest chair. "You are a young fool," he said good-naturedly. "German beer isn’t so harmless as you seem to think. What have you been doing with yourself?" Miles passed his hand over his forehead with a helpless movement, as though he were awakening from a dream.