"Wait." She understood, but it was as if she wished to have it from him.

"Till they've been here, you mean ?" "Yes, till they've gone.

Till they're away." She kept it up.

"Till they've left the country ?" She had her eyes on him for clearness; these were the conditions of a promise--so that he put the promise, practically, into his response.

"Till we've ceased to see them--for as long as God may grant! Till we're really alone." "Oh, if it's only that--!" When she had drawn from him thus then, as she could feel, the thick breath of the definite--which was the intimate, the immediate, the familiar, as she hadn't had them for so long--she turned away again, she put her hand on the knob of the door.