"You will think me shameless; I cannot help it. You say this is our last meeting; and I cannot bear to have you go away from me with the thought that you have to suffer alone. You think I ought to give you my sympathy, because I am your friend, and you will not be happy. But—but I will suffer too; and I am a woman—and alone—and whom have I to look to——?" He stopped her, and looked down into her face. "Annie, is this true?" he said, sadly and gravely. He got no answer beyond the sight of her streaming eyes and quivering lips. "Then are we the two wretchedest of God’s creatures," he said. "Ah, don’t say that," she murmured, venturing to look up at him through her tears. "Should we not be glad to know that we can think kindly of each other, without shame? Unhappy, yes!—but surely not the very wretchedest of all. And you won’t misunderstand me? You won’t think, afterwards, that it was because I was an actress that I confessed this to you——?" Even in such a moment a touch of Bohemianism!—a fear that her mother’s profession should suffer by her weakness. "Dearest!" he said, tenderly—"for you are, God help me! my very, very dearest—we now know each other too well to have to make excuses for our confidence in each other." They walked on now quite silently; there was too much for both of them to think about to admit of speech. As they walked southward, down the long and sombre thoroughfares, the large moon on their left slowly rose, and still rose, at every minute losing its ruddy hues, and gaining in clear, full light. They knew not whither they were going. There was no passer-by to stare at them; they were alone in the world, with the solitary houses, and the great moon. "You have not told me a minute too soon," he said, suddenly, with a strange exultation in his tone. "What do you mean?" "You and I, Annie, love each other. If the future is to be taken from us, let us recompense ourselves _now_. When you walk back to your house to-night and the door closes, you and I see each other no more. To-morrow, and all the to-morrows after that, we are only strangers. But for the next half-hour—my dearest, my dearest! show me your face, and let me see what your eyes say!—why should we not forget all these coming days, and live that half-hour for ourselves? It is but a little time; the sweetness of it will be a memory to us. Let us be lovers, Annie!—only for this little time we shall be together, my dearest! Let us try to imagine that you and I are to be married to-morrow—that all the coming years we are to be together—that now we have nothing to do but to yield ourselves up to our love——" "I am afraid," she said, in a low voice, trembling. "Why afraid, then?" "That afterwards the recollection will be too bitter." "Darling, nothing that you can imagine is likely to be more bitter than what you and I must bear. Just now, we have a little time our own; let us forget what is to come, and——" "Whisper, then," she said.