They had reached their corner. "To-morrow." "Yes." "At eight." "Yes." He resisted a great temptation, and offered his hand. She took it suddenly in both of hers and brought it to her lips as she had done in the hospital. "You've been white, awful white to me," she said, and flitted away into the engulfing night. When he left her, her words came back to him, and brought an unrest. He had almost yielded to what he had vowed never to do, he, who only wanted her to feel his respect. Yet the next day seemed endless. He regretted that he had not gone to where she lived, for then he could have found her in the afternoon. A shower passed during the day, leaving the streets moist and luminous with long lances of light and star points on the wet stones. He went breathlessly as he had never gone before, a little troubled, always reasoning with his conscience. "It was only a crazy spell," he said to himself. "I don't know what got into me. I'll be careful, now." When he reached the lamp-post another figure was there, Muriel Stacey, painted and over-dressed, and in her hand was a white letter, that he saw half-way up the block. He stopped short, frowning. "Where's Fanny?" "Here's a note she sent you," said the girl; "she's gone." "Gone?" "This morning." He looked at the envelope; his name was written there in a childish, struggling hand. "All right; thank you," he said suffocating. He left hurriedly, physically uncomfortable in the presence of Muriel Stacey, her friend. At the first lamp-post he stopped, broke the envelope, and read the awkward, painfully written script. "I'm going away, it's best for you and me I know it. Guess I would care too much and I'm not good enough for you. Don't you be angry with me. Good luck. God bless you. "F." He slipped it hurriedly in his pocket, and set off at a wild pace. And suddenly his conscience, his accusing conscience, rose up. He saw where he had been going. It brought him a solemn moment. Then he remembered the girl. He took the letter from his pocket and held it clutched like a hand in his hand. "Good God," he said, "I wonder what'll become of her?" He had found so much good that the tragedy revolted him. So he went through the busy streets with their flare and ceaseless motion, in the wet of the night, watching with solemn, melancholy eyes, other women pass with sidelong glances. All the horror and the hopelessness of a life he could not better thronged over him, and he stood a long while looking down the great bleak ways, through the gates that it is better not to pry ajar. Then in a revulsion of feeling, terrified at what he divined, he left and went, almost in an instinct for protection, hurriedly to the Story home, white and peaceful under the elms. He did not go in, but he stood a little while opposite, looking in through the warm windows at the serenity and the security that seemed to permeate the place.