For a moment, man and woman faced each other. Not a word was spoken.
Catherine had no word to say; and Waldron, though his lips worked, could
bring none to utterance. Then their eyes met; and his lowered.
"Good-bye," said she quietly. "Good-bye forever, as my betrothed. When
we meet again, Wally, it will be as friends, and nothing more. And now,
let me go. Don't come with me. I prefer to be alone. I'd rather walk, a
bit, and think--and then go back quietly to the club-house, and so home,
in my car. Don't follow me. Here--take this, and--good-bye."
Mechanically he accepted the gleaming jewel. Mechanically, like a man
without sense or reason, he watched her walk away from him, upright and
strong and lithe, voluptuous and desirable in every motion of that
splendid body, now lost to him forever. Then all at once, entering a
woodland path that led by a short cut back to the club-house, she
vanished from his sight.
Vanished, without having even so much as turned to look at him again, or
wave that firm brown hand.
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