"I am going!" he said. "I am leaving England, but from day to day I shall let you know where I am, so that you can send to me when you want me to return to you. Write on a paper, 'Come to me,' and I will come, though years should pass before I read those words. I deserve to suffer, as I know I shall suffer."
He held out his hand. She took it. Her tears fell upon it. She did not speak as he went to the door. Then she gave a cry like the cry of a wounded animal. She held out her hands to him.
"Not yet! Not yet!" she said.
She flung herself into his arms, kissing him and kissing him, holding him to her with her arms about his neck.
"Good-by! Good-by, my darling, my best beloved. Oh, go! Go, Herbert, before I die in your arms. Go!"
She was lying along the floor with her head on the sofa.
He was gone.
She looked wildly around the room, wiping the tears from her eyes. She sprang to her feet, crying:
"Come back! Come back to me, my beloved! Oh, I was a fool! Such a fool as women are when they think of such things as heaven and truth and right! A fool! A fool!"
An hour afterward Ella called to say good-by to her. She was going to Switzerland first, she said, to a quiet spot that she knew, where she might think out some of the details of the Church. Mr. Holland would meet her in Italy in the winter to consider some of the architectural details.
When the hour of her departure was at hand she referred to another matter--a matter on which she spoke much more seriously than she had yet spoken on the subject of the Church.
"I could not go, my dear Phyllis," said she, "without telling you that I know Herbert Courtland will come to you."
"No!" said Phyllis. "He will not come to me. He has been with me. He is now gone."
"Gone? That would be impossible!" cried Ella. "You would not send him away. He told you that he loved you."
"Yes, he told me that."
"And yet you sent him away? Oh, Phyllis, you would not break my heart.
I know that you love him."
"Do I?"
"You do love him. Oh, my Phyllis, I told him months ago that it was the dearest wish of my heart to see you married to him. At that time he laughed. Oh, it is horrible to me to recall now how he laughed.
Shall I ever forget that terrible dream? But now he loves you. I know it. What! you think him unworthy of you because of--of that dream which was upon us? Phyllis, don't forget that he fought with the sin and overcame it. How? Ah! you know how. He overcame the passion that is of earth by the love that is of heaven. It was his pure love for you that gave him the victory. Why should you send him away?"
"He knows. He understands. He is gone."
"But I do not understand."
She held Phyllis' hand and looked into her face. She gave a sudden start--a little start.
"Oh, surely, my Phyllis, you don't think that I--I---- Oh, no! you cannot think that of me. Oh, my darling, if you should be so foolish as to think that I--that I still---- Ah, I cannot speak about it.
Listen to me, Phyllis: I tell you that as he conquered himself by the love which is of heaven, so have I conquered by the same Divine Power.
The love which is in heaven--the love which is mine--has given me the victory also. Dear Phyllis, that man is nothing to me to-day. I tell you he is nothing--nothing! Ah, I don't even hate him. If I should ever speak to him again it would be to send him back to you."
Phyllis said nothing, and just then her father came into the room, and after a few minutes' conventional chat Ella went away.
