“No,” he cried, “don’t go—don’t go away.” Her tenderness made her calm. She replied in a voice perfect in restrained sadness and resignation. “No, my dear, no. The threads of my life were untwined; they drifted about like floating threads of gossamer; and you didn’t put out your hand to take them and twist them up into the chord with yours. Now another has caught them up, and the chord of my life is being twisted, and I cannot wrench it free and untwine it again—I can’t. I am not strong enough. Besides, you have twisted another thread far and tight into your chord; could you get free?” “Tell me what to do—yes, if you tell me.” “I can’t tell you—so let me go.” “No, Lettie,” he pleaded, with terror and humility. “No, Lettie; don’t go. What should I do with my life? Nobody would love you like I do—and what should I do with my love for you?—hate it and fear it, because it’s too much for me?” She turned and kissed him gratefully. He then took her in a long, passionate embrace, mouth to mouth. In the end it had so wearied her that she could only wait in his arms till he was too tired to hold her. He was trembling already. “Poor Meg!” she murmured to herself dully, her sensations having become vague. He winced, and the pressure of his arms slackened. She loosened his hands and rose half dazed from her seat by him. She left him, while he sat dejected, raising no protest. When I went out to look for them, when tea had already been waiting on the table half an hour or more, I found him leaning against the gatepost at the bottom of the hill. There was no blood in his face, and his tan showed livid; he was haggard as if he had been ill for some weeks. “Whatever’s the matter?” I said. “Where’s Lettie?” “She’s gone home,” he answered, and the sound of his own voice, and the meaning of his own words made him heave. “Why?” I asked in alarm. He looked at me as if to say “What are you talking about? I cannot listen!” “Why?” I insisted. “I don’t know,” he replied. “They are waiting tea for you,” I said. He heard me, but took no notice. “Come on,” I repeated, “there’s Meg and everybody waiting tea for you.” “I don’t want any,” he said. I waited a minute or two. He was violently sick. _“Vae meum Fervens difficile bile tumet jecur”_ I thought to myself. When the sickness passed over, he stood up away from the post, trembling and lugubrious. His eyelids drooped heavily over his eyes, and he looked at me, and smiled a faint, sick smile. “Come and lie down in the loft,” I said, “and I’ll tell them you’ve got a bilious bout.” He obeyed me, not having energy to question; his strength had gone, and his splendid physique seemed shrunken; he walked weakly. I looked away from him, for in his feebleness he was already beginning to feel ludicrous. We got into the barn unperceived, and I watched him climb the ladder to the loft. Then I went indoors to tell them.