When she was not actually present, he yet took her with him through the wide regions of his studies---set her figure in old Greek landscapes and surrounded it with dim shapes of loveliness--saw her sometimes as the perfection that went into marble--made her a portion of legend and story, linking her with Nausicaa and Andromache and the lost others. Then quitting antiquity with her altogether, he passed downward with her into the days of chivalry, brought her to Arthur's court, and invested her with one character after another, trying her by the ladies of knightly ideals--reading her between the lines in all the king's idyls. But last and best, seeing her in the clear white light of her own country and time--as the spirit of American girlhood, pure, refined, faultlessly proportioned in mental and physical health, full of kindness, full of happiness, made for love, made for motherhood. All this he did in his hopeless and idealizing worship of her; and all this and more he hid away: for he too had his crypt. So watching her and watching vainly over her, he was the first to see that she was loved and that her nature was turning away from him, from all that he could offer--subdued by that one other call. "Now, Fates," he said, "by whatsoever names men have blindly prayed to you; you that love to strike at perfection, and pass over a multitude of the ordinary to reach the rare, stand off for a few years! Let them be happy together in their love, their marriage, and their young children. Let the threads run freely and be joyously interwoven. Have mercy at least for a few years!" A carriage turned a corner of the street and was driven to the door. Isabel got out, and entered the hall without ringing. He met her there and as she laid her hands in his without a word, he held them and looked at her without a word. He could scarcely believe that in a few days her life could so have drooped as under a dreadful blight. "I have come to say good-by," and with a quiver of the lips she turned her face aside and brushed past him, entering the library. He drew his own chair close to hers when she had seated herself. "I thought you and your grandmother were going later: is not this unexpected?" "Yes, it is very unexpected." "But of course she is going with you?" "No, I am going alone." "For the summer?" "Yes, for the summer. I suppose for a long time." She continued to sit with her cheek leaning against the back of the chair, her eyes directed outward through the windows. He asked reluctantly: "Is there any trouble?" "Yes, there is trouble." "Can you tell me what it is?" "No, I cannot tell you what it is. I cannot tell any one what it is." "Is there anything I can do?" "No, there is nothing you can do. There is nothing any one can do." Silence followed for some time. He smiled at her sadly: "Shall I tell you what the trouble is?" "You do not know what it is. I believe I wish you did know. But I cannot tell you."