"I am sorry." Miss Hitchcock blushed as she spoke. "I will go away--I didn't mean to intrude--I thought--" "No, don't go! I didn't mean you. I wanted to be alone, all alone for a little while, but I am glad now that you came, that you cared to come. You didn't know Alves." "She wouldn't let me know her," Miss Hitchcock protested gently. "Yes, I remember. You see, our life was peculiar. I think Alves was afraid of you, of all the world." "I knew how you loved her," Miss Hitchcock exclaimed irrelevantly. Sommers tried to answer. He felt like talking to this warm-hearted woman; he wanted to talk, but he could not phrase the complex feeling in his heart. Everything about Alves had something in it he could not make another, even the most sympathetic soul in the world, understand. It was like trying to explain an impression of a whole life. "There is so much I can't tell any one," he said at last, with a wan smile. "Don't misunderstand--you'd have to know the whole, and I couldn't begin to make you know it." "Don't try," she said, tears coming to her eyes. "I know that it has been noble and generous--on both sides," she added. "It has ended," he answered drearily. "I don't know where to begin." "Can't I send for some one, some friend?" she suggested. "I haven't any friend," he replied absently. "And Alves wouldn't want any one. She would have done everything for me. I will do everything for her." "Then I will stay here, while you are away," Miss Hitchcock replied quickly. "Don't hurry. I will wait here in this room." Sommers thought a moment and then answered gently: "I think not. I think Alves would rather be alone. Let me go back to the city with you. I have some errands there." Miss Hitchcock's face expressed her disappointment. She had triumphed impulsively over so many conventions in coming to him unasked that she felt doubly hurt. "Very well. Only you will not always put me outside, in this way?" she implored, bravely stifling her pride. "It will not be so easy to say it later, and it will hurt if you refuse to have anything to do with my father and me." "_I_ shall not refuse," Sommers responded warmly. "I am grateful for what you want to do." "You know--" She completed the sentence with a sigh and prepared to accompany him. Sommers locked the door, putting the key in the usual hiding-place, and together they crossed the park to the railroad station. There they separated. "I shall not come out to-morrow," Miss Hitchcock said, as if she had arrived at the decision after some wavering. He did not urge her to come, and they shook hands. "Remember," she said hesitatingly, "that ideas don't separate people. You must _trust_ people, those who understand and care." "I shan't forget," he answered humbly.