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 ness. “How shall I be able to ride? Come, darling, come and see me to-day. Mon Oncle Charles is away to-day, and even if he weren’t it’s all the same to me.” She got up and kissed him. “Au revoir.”

In the doorway she stopped, hesitated, and came back to him. “Kill me, please,” she said, her hands hanging limp by her side, “kill me.” He put his hands on her: “Why?”

“So that I shan’t have to go away and so that I shall never have to be here.” He whispered into her ear: “ To-morrow.”

She looked at him, and submissively bent down her head; it was a sign of assent.

When she had been gone some time he also went out into the half-light. Some one a hundred yards away got up from the ground and rubbed the dirt off his clothes with his sleeve. The silent Mr. Holz.