Of course he meant to write--why not to do something great in his turn? His best, at least; with the resolve, at the outset, that his best should be _the_ best. Nothing less seemed possible with that mandate in his ears. How she had divined him; lifted and disentangled his groping ambitions; laid the awakening touch on his spirit with her creative _Let there be light!_ It was his last day with her, and he was feeling very hopeless and happy. “You ought to write a book about _him,”_ she went on gently. Danyers started; he was beginning to dislike Rendle’s way of walking in unannounced. “You ought to do it,” she insisted. “A complete interpretation--a summing-up of his style, his purpose, his theory of life and art. No one else could do it as well.” He sat looking at her perplexedly. Suddenly--dared he guess? “I couldn’t do it without you,” he faltered. “I could help you--I would help you, of course.” They sat silent, both looking at the lake. It was agreed, when they parted, that he should rejoin her six weeks later in Venice. There they were to talk about the book. III _Lago d’Iseo, August 14th_. When I said good-by to you yesterday I promised to come back to Venice in a week: I was to give you your answer then. I was not honest in saying that; I didn’t mean to go back to Venice or to see you again. I was running away from you--and I mean to keep on running! If _you_ won’t, _I_ must. Somebody must save you from marrying a disappointed woman of--well, you say years don’t count, and why should they, after all, since you are not to marry me? That is what I dare not go back to say. _You are not to marry me_. We have had our month together in Venice (such a good month, was it not?) and now you are to go home and write a book--any book but the one we--didn’t talk of!--and I am to stay here, attitudinizing among my memories like a sort of female Tithonus. The dreariness of this enforced immortality! But you shall know the truth. I care for you, or at least for your love, enough to owe you that. You thought it was because Vincent Rendle had loved me that there was so little hope for you. I had had what I wanted to the full; wasn’t that what you said? It is just when a man begins to think he understands a woman that he may be sure he doesn’t! It is because Vincent Rendle _didn’t love me_ that there is no hope for you. I never had what I wanted, and never, never, never will I stoop to wanting anything else.