She drew near to him. Her face as she lifted it to his was transfigured. Never had he seen it so beautiful, so gravely tender. A yearning light of love lit her eyes, made them melting and wondrously soft. For a moment they remained looking at one another. Then he gathered her close in his arms, crushed her to him, and kissed her mouth again and again. "We're parting," he muttered, drawing back his head, and staring at her without releasing her. "I don't feel I can go somehow. I feel I'm a fool to go. Why don't I stay and fight it out with you, Pamela? You little woman, the strength that is in you! You don't answer. Your eyes just tell me I must go. Well, I am taking part of you away with me--and leaving the best of myself with you... We'll go on... We'll get used to it in time, I daresay. But it hurts, Pamela." "Yes." She touched his cheek softly with her hand. "These last few days," she said, "they're something to remember..." "Something," he said, "yes." "We've been very close," she whispered. "Nothing--no bodily separation can alter that. The memory of your love will remain with me always. I'm glad we've talked of love, dear,--that we haven't tried to hide things from each other." "Oh! we've talked," he said. "But talking..." He broke off, and caught her to him again. Then he held her a little way off, and scrutinised her long and earnestly. "I don't understand," he muttered... Suddenly his face softened. He bent his head and kissed her again quietly, and, releasing her, turned away. "Good-bye," he said, a little abruptly, and opened the door of the room and stepped into the corridor. Pamela remained standing where he had left her, her arms hanging loosely at her sides, her face strained and curiously set; and in her eyes, glowing darkly in the white face, a shadowed look of suffering too deep for utterance or the relief of tears. When we stand at the parting of the ways how difficult seems the road, how bitter the moment of farewell. But sorrow is no longer enduring than any other emotion. We take our lives again, and go on. CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR. Some years later Dare sat in his room before an untidy desk with a letter spread out before him among the litter of papers and things lying about. The letter was from Pamela, between whom and himself, since the occasion when he had been present at her marriage in Pretoria, these regular but infrequent communications formed the sole link. This letter in its quiet reflective tone differed from any other he had received from her. It breathed through every line of it a calm satisfaction, a resigned acceptance of the conditions of her life, that was in no wise morbid, that held, indeed, a note of hope, of quiet gladness even. Clearly for her the turbulent discontent was past. She had glided into some forgotten backwater, and discovered there beauties that lie unsuspected in these restful retreats of the mind.