'There's nothing to forgive,' said Althea, rising. 'You told me the truth, and what I had said was so despicable that I deserved to have it told to me. All the mistakes are mine. I've wanted things that I've no right to; I suppose it's that. You and I weren't made for each other, just as Gerald and I weren't, and it's all only my mistake and my misfortune--for wanting and loving people who couldn't want or love me. I see it all at last, and it's all over. Good-bye, Helen.' She put out her hand. 'Oh, but don't--don't----' Helen clasped her hand, strangely shaken by impulses of pity and self-reproach that yet left her helpless before her friend's sincerity. 'Don't say you are going to give me up,' she finished, and tears stood in her eyes. 'I'm afraid I must give up all sorts of things,' said Althea, smiling desolately. 'If we hadn't got so near, we might have gone on. I'm afraid when people aren't made for each other they can't get so near without its breaking them. Good-bye. I shall try to be worthy of Franklin. I shall try to make him happy.' CHAPTER XXXV. She drove back to her hotel. She felt very tired. The world she gazed at seemed vast and alien, a world in which she had no place. The truth had come to her and she looked at it curiously, almost indifferently. London flowed past her, long tides of purpose to right and left. The trees in Green Park were softly blurred on the chill, white sky. She looked at the trees and sky and at the far lift of Piccadilly, blackened with traffic, and, at the faces that went by, as if it were all a vast cinematograph and she the idlest of spectators. And it was here that love had first come to her, and here that despair had come. Now both were over and she accepted her defeat. She thought, when the hotel was reached, and as she went upstairs, that she would go to bed and try to sleep. But when she entered her little sitting-room she found Franklin there waiting for her. He had been reading the newspapers before the fire and had risen quickly on hearing her step. It was as if she had forgotten Franklin all this time.