"It is too late," she whispered--"Oh, I should never have come! I should never have seen these two wonderful old people of yours. Now I know all that the City of Beautiful Nonsense meant. You very nearly made them real to me that day in Fetter Lane; but now I know them. Oh, I don’t wonder that you love them! I don’t wonder that you would come every year--year after year to see them! If only my mother and father were like that, how different all of it would be then." "You haven’t the courage to break away from it all?" asked John quietly--"to make these old people of mine--to make them yours. If I couldn’t support you over in London, you could live with them here, and I would do as much of my work here as possible." Jill looked steadily into his eyes. "Do you think I should be happy?" she asked. "Would you be happy if, to marry me, you had to give up them? Wouldn’t their faces haunt you in the most perfect moments of your happiness? Wouldn’t his eyes follow you in everything you did? Wouldn’t those poor withered hands of hers be always pulling feebly at your heart? And if you thought that they were poor----?" "They are," said John. He thought of the Treasure Shop; of that pathetic figure, hiding in the shadows of it, who would not sell his goods, because he loved them too well. "Could you leave them to poverty then?" said Jill. "So it’s too late?" he repeated. "I’ve given my word," she replied. He lifted her hand generously to his lips and kissed it. "Then you mustn’t come to-morrow," he said quietly. "Not see them again?" she echoed. "No. You must send some excuse. Write to my mother. Say your friends have decided to stop at Bologna on their way to Milan and that they are going to start at once. She loves you too well--she counts on you too much already. It’ll be a long time before I can drive out of her head the thought that you are going to be my wife. And I don’t want to do it by telling her that you are going to be married to someone else. She wouldn’t understand that. She belongs to an old-fashioned school, where ringlets and bonnets and prim little black shoes over dainty white stockings, make a wonderful difference to one’s behaviour. She probably couldn’t understand your wanting to see them under such a circumstance as that. She could scarcely believe that you cared for me and, if she did, would think that we shouldn’t see each other, as perhaps, after this, we shan’t. No, I shall have quite enough difficulty in driving you out of her mind as it is. You mustn’t come and see them to-morrow. She’ll nearly break her heart when she hears it, but nearly is not quite." "Shan’t I ever see them again then?" she asked below her breath. He shook his head. "This is the last time you’ll see any of us."