"Well--first, because you said you couldn’t come this morning, and we’ve been here for an hour and a half; and secondly, because if, as you say, we are to see no more of each other, then hadn’t I better go now? I think it’s better. Good-bye." He held out his hand again. She took it reluctantly, and he was gone. The next morning, Jill had wakened an hour earlier--an hour earlier than was her wont--an hour earlier, with the weight of a sense of loss pressing on her mind. It is that hour in bed before rising that a woman thinks all the truest things in her day; is most honest with herself, and least subtle in the expression of her thoughts. Then she gets up--bathes--does her hair and, by the time a dainty camisole is concealing those garments that prove her to be a true woman--all honesty is gone; she assumes the mystery of her sex. In that hour earlier before her rising, Jill honestly admitted her disgust with life. Romance is well-nigh everything to a woman--for Romance is the Prelude, full of the most sonorous of chords, breathing with the most wonderful of cadences--a Prelude to the great Duty which she must inevitably perform. And this had been Romance. She had just touched it, just set in motion the unseen fingers that play with such divine inspiration upon the whole gamut of the strings, and now, it had been put away. Mind you, she knew nothing of the evolution of the Prelude; she knew little of the history of the Duty to perform. It was not the conscious loss of these that brought the disgust of life into the complaining heart of her; for Romance, when first it comes to a woman, is like the peak of a mountain whose head is lifted above the clouds. It has nothing of this earth; means no such mundane phrase as--falling in love. To the girl of twenty-one, Romance is the spirit of things beautiful, and, therefore, the spirit of all things good. And Jill had lost it. They were not to meet again. She was never to hear another of his stories. He was not coming to Kensington Gardens any more. But suppose he did come! Suppose there were the sense of regret in the heart of him, as it was with her, and suppose he came to see the place where they had sat together! If she could only know that he cared enough to do that! It would make the renunciation more bearable if she could only know that. How could she find out? Send Ronald to the Gardens at about that hour? He would say if he had seen him. But if Ronald went to the Gardens, he would be voyaging on the good ship _Albatross_, far away out at sea, out of sight of land, in the dim distance of make-belief. But if she went herself--just casually--just for a walk--just to see, only to see. And, if he were there, she could easily escape; she could easily creep away unnoticed. Well--not quite unnoticed, perhaps. He might see her in the distance, just before she passed out of sight.