She looked up at him, and he
met her glance without flinching.
He said good-bye to her at the foot of the staircase.
It was the first time she had ever shaken hands with him.
"Good-bye," he said gently. "Good luck to you."
"Good-bye," she answered.
He went up the stairs, and turned round as though he wished to say
something more. But he changed his mind, and kept his own counsel.
An hour later Bernardine left Petershof. Only the concierge of the
Kurhaus saw her off at the station.
CHAPTER XX.
A LOVE-LETTER.
TWO days after Bernardine had left Petershof, the snows began to melt.
Nothing could be drearier than that process: nothing more desolate than
the outlook.
The Disagreeable Man sat in his bedroom trying to read Carpenter's
Anatomy. It failed to hold him. Then he looked out of the window, and
listened to the dripping of the icicles. At last he took a pen, and
wrote as follows:
"LITTLE COMRADE, LITTLE PLAYMATE."
"I could not believe that you were really going. When you first said
that you would soon be leaving, I listened with unconcern, because it
did not seem possible that the time could come when we should not be
together; that the days would come and go, and that I should not know
how you were; whether you were better, and more hopeful about your life
and your work, or whether the old misery of indifference and ill-health
was still clinging to you; whether your voice was strong as of one who
had slept well and felt refreshed, or whether it was weak like that of
one who had watched through the long night.
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