“Oh, Michael, I have just called and am waiting to know if you will see me. I have seen the news, and I want to tell you how sorry I am. But if you don’t care to see me I know you will say so, won’t you?” Though an hour before he had turned back on his way to go to Sylvia, he did not hesitate now. “Yes, ask Miss Falbe to come up,” he said. She came up immediately, and once again as they met, the world and the war stood apart from them. “I did not expect you to come, Michael,” she said, “when I saw the news. I did not mean to come here myself. But--but I had to. I had just to find out whether you wouldn’t see me, and let me tell you how sorry I am.” He smiled at her as they stood facing each other. “Thank you for coming,” he said; “I’m so glad you came. But I had to be alone just a little.” “I didn’t do wrong?” she asked. “Indeed you didn’t. I did wrong not to come to you. I loved Francis, you see.” Already the shadow threatened again. It was just the fact that he loved Francis that had made it impossible for him to go to her, and he could not explain that. And as the shadow began to fall she gave a little shudder. “Oh, Michael, I know you did,” she said. “It’s just that which concerns us, that and my sympathy for you. He was such a dear. I only saw him, I know, once or twice, but from that I can guess what he was to you. He was a brother to you--a--a--Hermann.” Michael felt, with Sylvia’s hand in his, they were both running desperately away from the shadow that pursued them. Desperately he tried with her to evade it. But every word spoken between them seemed but to bring it nearer to them. “I only came to say that,” she said. “I had to tell you myself, to see you as I told you, so that you could know how sincere, how heartfelt--” She stopped suddenly. “That’s all, my dearest,” she added. “I will go away again now.” Across that shadow that had again fallen between them they looked and yearned for each other. “No, don’t go--don’t go,” he said. “I want you more than ever. We are here, here and now, you and I, and what else matters in comparison of that? I loved Francis, as you know, and I love Hermann, but there is our love, the greatest thing of all. We’ve got it--it’s here. Oh, Sylvia, we must be wise and simple, we must separate things, sort them out, not let them get mixed with one another. We can do it; I know we can. There’s nothing outside us; nothing matters--nothing matters.”