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Rh for you. But you do not know what you feel for him."

"Addie! Oh, Addie!"

"Don't deny it. Be honest. These are the last words, perhaps, that we shall exchange for quite a long time. I am going away now."

"Now?"

"Yes. . . . Write to me when there's any occasion."

"Very well."

"Good-bye, Tilly."

She was silent, sat staring before her, with her hands clasped over her knees. No, she did not understand him, but she could not act otherwise than he wished.

He was gone; and suddenly she felt very lonely. She heard him upstairs packing, rummaging in his cupboards.

And she began to reflect, sadly:

"He acts differently and speaks differently from anybody else. Divorced? Oh, no, I don't want that . . . if he doesn't want it for himself! . . . I . . . at least . . . not yet. . . . No, no, nor ever. . . . Oh, I don't know, I don't know! . . . I am fond of Johan. . . . If I were free now, if I were a girl still. . . . But Addie, the children. . . . I don't know, I don't know. . . . That was why Addie thought it would be well . . . for us not to see each other . . . for a time. How he will miss the children! . . . Oh dear, is he really, really going? Yes, I hear him upstairs . . . packing. . . . What will people say? Not that it matters. We can say that he has to read, quietly, out there . . . at Driebergen. . . . We can tell people something of the kind . . . even if they do understand. . . . I simply can't go back to Driebergen. . . . Oh, how will it work out, how will