"Confound it! Of course I did. I've always known it. Do you think I'd care for her so much if she wasn't all right?" Neville smiled at him gravely, then held out his hand: "Give my love to her, John. I'll see you both again before you go." For nearly two weeks he had not heard a word from Valerie West. Rita and John Burleson had departed, cheerful, sure of early convalescence and a complete and radical cure. Neville went with them to the train, but his mind was full of his own troubles and he could scarcely keep his attention on the ponderous conversation of Burleson, who was admonishing him and Ogilvy impartially concerning the true interpretation of creative art. He turned aside to Rita when opportunity offered and said in a low voice: "Before you go, tell me where Valerie is." "I can't, Kelly." "Did you promise her not to?" "Yes." He said, slowly: "I haven't had one word from her in nearly two weeks. Is she well?" "Yes. She came into town this morning to say good-bye to me." "I didn't know she was out of town," he said, troubled. "She has been, and is now. That's all I can tell you, Kelly dear." "She _is_ coming back, isn't she?" "I hope so." "Don't you know?" She looked into his anxious and miserable face and gently shook her head: "I _don't_ know, Kelly." "Didn't she say--intimate anything--" "No.... I don't think she knows--yet." He said, very quietly: "If she ever comes to any conclusion that it is better for us both never to meet again--I might be as dead as Querida for any work I should ever again set hand to. "If she will not marry me, but will let things remain as they are, at least I can go on caring for her and working out this miserable problem of life. But if she goes out of my life, life will go out of me. I know that now." Rita looked at him pitifully: "Valerie's mind is her own, Kelly. It is the most honest mind I have ever known; and nothing on earth--no pain that her decision might inflict upon her--would swerve it a hair's breath from what she concludes is the right thing to do." "I know it," he said, swallowing a sudden throb of fear. "Then what can I say to you?" "Nothing. I must wait." "Kelly, if you loved her enough you would not even wait." "What!" "Because her return to you will mean only one thing. Are you going to accept it of her?" "What can I do? I can't live without her!" "_Her_ problem is nobler, Kelly. She is asking herself not whether she can live life through without _you_--but whether you can live life well, and to the full, without _her_?" Neville flushed painfully.