"I'm awfully sorry, Fanny. I wouldn't have let it happen for the world, if I'd known it was going to. But who could have known?" "My dear, it wasn't your fault." "Do you mind frightfully?" Fanny looked away. "It depends," she said. "What did you say to him?" "I said a lot of things, but they weren't a bit of good. Then I'm afraid I laughed." "You laughed at him?" "I couldn't help it, Fanny. He was so funny." "Oh!" Fanny caught her breath back on a sob. "That's what I can't bear, Barbara--his being laughed at." "I know," said Barbara. "By the way, when you're dying dear, if you should be dying at any time, it'll be a consolation to you to know that he didn't see your drawings--" "Did _you_ see them?" "Only the one he was looking at when I came in." "Was it--was it the one where he was getting into bed?" "No. He was only hunting." "God has been kinder to me than I deserve then." "He's been kinder to him, too, I fancy." She went on. "I want you to see this thing straight. Understand. I don't mind his being in love with you. I knew he was. Head over ears in love. And I didn't mind a bit." "I think he was reckoning on that. He knew you'd forgive him." "Forgive him? It wasn't even a question of forgiveness. I was _glad_. I thought: If only he could have one real feeling. If only he could care for something or somebody that wasn't himself.... I think he cared for you, Barbara. It wasn't just himself. And I loved him for it." "You darling! And you don't hate me?" "You know I don't But I'd love you even more if you'd loved him." "If I'd loved him?" "Yes. If you'd gone away with him and made him happy. If you hadn't laughed at him, Barbara." "I know. It was awful of me. But what could I do?" "What could you do? We all do it. I do it. Mrs. Levitt did it." "I didn't do it like Mrs. Levitt." "No. But you were just one more. Think of it. All his life to be laughed at. And when he was making love, too; the most serious thing, Barbara, that anybody can do. I tell you I can't bear it. I'd have given him to you ten times first." "Then," said Barbara, "you _have_ got to forgive me." "If I don't, it's because it's my own sin and I can't forgive myself.... "... Besides, I let it happen. Because I thought it would cure him." "Of falling in love?" "Of trying to be young when he didn't feel it. I thought he'd see how impossible it was. But that's the sad part of it. He _would_ have felt young, Barbara, if you'd loved him. If I'd loved him I could have kept him young. I told you," she said, "it was all my fault." "You told me Ralph and I would never be old. Is that what you meant?" "Yes." They sat silent a moment, looking down through Ralph's window into the Market Square. And presently they saw Mr. Waddington pass the corner of the Town Hall and cross the wide, open space to the Dower House. "You must come back with me, Barbara. If you don't everybody'll know what's happened." "I can't, Fanny."