He put out his hand to her in all calm self-possession; he spoke the salutation with quiet equanimity; but as Sara looked in his face she knew that his agitation was not in reality less than hers. She said a few confused words in explanation of her being there at that hour, and alone. On calling that afternoon she had found Caroline not well, and had stayed with her to the last moment, as Mark was in the country. Then for a whole minute there was a silence. Perhaps neither could speak. Sara put an end to it by turning towards the gate. "You will let me see you home, as you are alone?" "No, thank you," she answered. "There is nothing to hurt me. It is as light as day." He did not press it. He seemed half-paralysed with indecision. Sara wished him good night, and he responded to it, and once more shook hands, all mechanically. But as she was going through the gate, she turned to speak, a question having occurred to her. One moment longer, and he had arrested her progress. "There are two or three books at our house belonging to you," she said. "What is to be done with them? Shall they be sent to the Apple Tree?" He caught her hands; he drew her from the gate into the bright moonlight. He could not let her go without a word of explanation; the cruelty of visiting upon her her father's sin was very present to him then. "Are we to part thus for ever, Sara?" Surely that question was cruel! It was not she who had instituted the parting; it was himself. She did not so much as know its cause. "May we not meet once in a way, as friends?" he continued. "I dare not ask for more now." That he loved her still was all too evident. And Sara took courage to gasp forth a question. In these moments of agitation the cold conventionalities of the world are sometimes set aside. "What has been the matter? How have we offended you?" "_You_ have not offended me," he answered, his agitation almost irrepressible. "I love you more than I ever did; this one moment of meeting has proved it to me. I could lay down my life for you, Sara; I could sacrifice all, save honour, for you. And you? You have not changed?--you love me still?" "Yes," she gasped, unable to deny the truth, too miserable to care to suppress it. "And yet we must part! we must go forth on our separate paths, striving to forget. But when our lives shall end, Sara, we shall neither of us have loved another as we love now." Her very heart seemed to shiver; the fiat was all too plainly expressed. But she stood there quietly, waiting for more, her hand in his. "I would have forfeited half my future life, I would have given all its benefits to be able to call you mine. The blow upon me has been very bitter." "What blow?" she murmured. "I cannot tell it you," he cried, after a struggle. "Not to you can I speak of it." "But you must," she rejoined, the words breaking from her in her agony. "You have said too much, or too little."