I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation
of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and
absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold. She motioned me to
a chair. We sat down. I laid the packet gently on the little table, and
she put her hand over it. . . . 'You knew him well,' she murmured, after
a moment of mourning silence.
"'Intimacy grows quickly out there,' I said. 'I knew him as well as it
is possible for one man to know another.'
"'And you admired him,' she said. 'It was impossible to know him and not
to admire him. Was it?'
"'He was a remarkable man,' I said, unsteadily. Then before the
appealing fixity of her gaze, that seemed to watch for more words on my
lips, I went on, 'It was impossible not to--'
"'Love him,' she finished eagerly, silencing me into an appalled
dumbness. 'How true! how true! But when you think that no one knew him
so well as I! I had all his noble confidence. I knew him best.'
"'You knew him best,' I repeated. And perhaps she did. But with every
word spoken the room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth
and white, remained illumined by the inextinguishable light of belief
and love.
"'You were his friend,' she went on.
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