was bareheaded, dressed in white; and she advanced over the smooth lawn, through evergreens and shrubs, with a gentle grace and dignity of movement such as I had never beheld. I kept my weary pace, and when she came up I did not lift my eyes. "Adam!" she said, with gentle reproach. I stood still then, but with my face turned away. "Forgive me!" All girlishness was gone out of her voice. It was the woman at last. I turned my face farther from her, and we stood in silence. "I have suffered enough, Adam," she pleaded. I answered quietly, doggedly, for there was nothing left in me to appeal to: "I am glad we can part kindly. . . . Neither of us may care much for the kindness now, but we will not be sorry hereafter. . . . The quarrels, the mistakes, the right and the wrong of our lives, the misunderstandings--they are so strange, so pitiful, so full of pain, and come so soon to nothing." And I lifted my hat, and took the path towards my house. There was a point ahead where it divided, the other branch leading towards the little private gate through which Georgiana had come. Just before reaching the porch I looked that way, with the idea that I should see Georgiana's white figure moving across the lawn; but I discovered that she was following me. Mounting my door-steps, I turned. She had paused on the threshold. I waited. At length she said, in a voice low and sorrowful: "And you are not going to forgive me, Adam?" "I _do_ forgive you!" The silence fell and lasted. I no longer saw her face. At last her despairing voice barely reached me again: "And--is--_that_--all?" I had no answer to make, and sternly waited for her to go. A moment longer she lingered, then turned slowly away; and I watched her figure growing fainter and fainter till it was lost. I sprang after her; my voice rang out hollow, and broke with terror and pain and longing: "Georgiana! Georgiana!" "Oh, Adam, _Adam_!" I heard her cry, with low, piercing tenderness, as she ran back to me through the darkness.