"After all," says Keith, with a mocking laugh that grates terribly on her ear, "why _should_ I not follow your advice as well as your example? Why should I eat my heart out, and waste my life on an empty love? You have told me to leave you; that you wish to see me no more. Very well; _this_ time I will take you at your word. I will leave you, and let the future prove who was right or wisest. I--I will go away! I _will_ forget!" "It is well," she says, her voice low and faint. "I deserve all you have said, and more. I have only brought sorrow to you! Go away, live your own life, forget me, and be happy again." "Those are your last words?" "Yes. My life is hard and sad enough; you would add to it shame and misery and undying remorse, and call that a proof of--love. Forgive me if I cannot see it in the same light as yourself." "And I say you do not love me, and never did, or you would know----" "Very well," she interrupts, "believe that. It is best that you should." "And I am to go now?" he says, sorrowful and hesitating. "If you send me from you to-night, Lauraine, I will never come back. Remember that." Both of them are hurt and angry now, both beset with cruel pain, and waging that terrible conflict with passionate love and wounded pride that is at once so ill-judged, and resentful a thing. Lauraine looks steadily away from the entreating, watchful eyes; away, away to the far-off mountain range swept with faint grey clouds, silvered by the clear moonlight and the haze of the shining stars. "If he only knew," she thinks, in the depths of her aching heart, "if he only, only knew!" But he does not know. To him she is only cold, calculating, unloving. Right and pure he knows in her mode of loving and thinking; but what man who loves as Keith loves can see right and purity as they are? "I have never asked you to come back," says Lauraine, faint and low, "and be very sure I never will. I am sorry that you are angry with me. Perhaps to-morrow you will be sorry too. But I know it is best." "Good-bye then!" She turns, and gives him her hand. He looks at her long, and the blue eyes grow misty, the fire and anger die out. He bends suddenly forward and touches her fingers with his lips. He does not speak another word, only drops her hand and goes. The echo of his footsteps dies away. The door closes with a heavy sound. With a stifled sob Lauraine falls on her knees, and leans her head against the low railings of the flower-covered balcony. "Dear Heaven! how hard it is to do right!" she moans. The wind stirs the pine boughs, and the stars shine calmly down. They have seen so much of trouble, have heard so much despair, and to them a human life is such a little space to sorrow in, or be glad. CHAPTER XVI Cry, O lover, Love is over. When Lady Etwynde comes back, she finds Lauraine lying cold and insensible on the little balcony.