“No. If I were--oh, June, if I were!” He turned away as if to go, then turned back, and said, “Oh, June, if I were, we would be so happy! If I could undo the past and take you--!” His voice broke and he looked down, biting his underlip. She understood everything now, and for the moment speech was impossible. There was a slight pause, and then he said, “I wouldn’t let myself see the way it was going. I lied to myself. I loved you better every day, and I persuaded myself I didn’t, and that it was nothing but a friendship to both of us. We mustn’t meet this way any more. But we will see each other sometimes at people’s houses? We’re not to be strangers.” She turned dazedly away from him to go to the house. For a step or two he let her go. Then he followed her, caught her hand with its bunch of limp flowers, and said with urgent desperation: “I’ll see you sometimes. I can’t give you up entirely. Perhaps-- perhaps--later, when time has passed, we can be friends. June, I can’t give it all up like this.” She turned on him a face whose expression pierced through his egotism. “Let me go into the house,” she whispered. “I can’t say anything now. Let me go into the house.” He dropped her hand, and turning, walked rapidly toward the driveway. June ran to the house. It was wrapped in complete silence. Not a sound or movement came from it. She had but one idea, to mount the stairs unseen, gain her room and then lock the door. Noiseless and fleet-footed she sped up the veranda steps, flew through the open door, and then cowered against the wall. Rosamund was on the stairs coming down. “June,” she said sharply, “where did Jerry Barclay come from, and what was he saying to you out there? I’ve been watching you from the window.” Then she saw her sister’s face. Her own changed in a flash. Its severity vanished, and concern, alarm, love, took its place. She ran downward to the figure at the stair-foot, pressed against the wall. “What’s happened? June, what’s the matter?” Her startled whisper broke the sunny stillness with a note of the deadly realism of life amid the sweet unconcern of nature. She tried to clasp June, who made an effort to squeeze past her, crushed against the wall, her head down, like one who fears recognition. When, finding it impossible to escape, she suddenly collapsed at Rosamund’s feet, curled up like a person in physical anguish, and cried with smothered violence, “He’s not free, Rosamund. It’s all over; everything’s over. It’s all true, and we’ve got to end it all. He’s not free.” Rosamund realized vaguely what had happened. She was a loving woman, but she was a practical one, too. There were people in the house who must not see June just at this crisis. She was much the larger and stronger of the two girls, and she bent down and attempted to raise the prostrate figure.