"Why do you ask ?" She did not smile, or stir, except to lean slightly forward, her eyes falling from his face to the platform.
"Would--would it be too much if I were to ask you to permit me to take this first train alone ?" she asked, her voice faltering, her hands trembling where they were clasped in her lap.
His first bewildered surprise precluded speech; he could only look at her in stupefied amazement.

Then something within her lowered face touched him with pity.
"Beth," he exclaimed, hardly aware of the words used, "do you mean that?
Is it your wish that we part here?
"Oh, no, not that!" and she rose hastily, holding to the back of the bench with one hand, and extending the other.

"Do not put it in that way.

Such an act would be cruel, unwarranted.

But I am so tired, so completely broken down.