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 here to take me away, she'll write for me to go to her."

"And leave your music?" He had been counting on another month of meetings at the least, to bring her so near to him that she would never be able to go free and forgetful of him again.

"The term is practically over now. There's nothing left but the examinations. I'm not taking them." When she looked up at him, she cried: "Well, it's your own fault! Why didn't you see what time it was?"

He had no thought of defending himself. He was dumb on the edge of the gulf of years—the three years of his college course at the very least—which separated him from New York and the hope of winning her.

His helplessness irritated her; he had been so confident of his plans, under the pine, that she had believed he would see some way of writing to her mother and defending her. "What are you going to do?"

He took out his watch and looked at it dazedly, shaking his head in answer to her question; for it was as if the stroke of the disaster had broken the continuity of his life; and with his future suddenly gone from him, he tried to pick up the broken strands that were left, and found himself wondering simply what day of the week it was and what day the morrow would be.

The sight of her tears brought him to himself. He said hoarsely: "Don't. Don't. I'll fix it. I'll do something. Give me time—to think. It isn't any worse than it was the day I got your mother's letter." He turned her quickly into a side street, talking at random in his attempts to reassure her and almost in tears