she came to me saying that "Issam" had learned everything Siham had said about him. I do not know from whom, nor do I care to know; but he learned of it, and that is what matters. So he sent her a letter of reproach — more, indeed, than reproach. Amal told me this, then asked me: was it I who had told him?...

That word was the end of my dealings with them both. I gave Amal a look of reproach and said to her, "Amal, do you believe such a thing could happen?" She said, "No... but I thought that..." I cut her off bitterly: "All that Siham did to me does not equal this one word, Amal. It grieves me to lose you both, but you two took no heed of my feelings, so it is better for me to live without you — even if I must live alone." Then I left her dumbfounded and went my way.

The year was not yet over; six weeks of it remained. Six weeks were all that remained to me in that institute, and I spent them by

myself, befriending no one, no girl wishing for my friendship.

Those weeks passed slowly, so that I felt their end would never come. And with every day that came, my love for Issam grew.

I came to love him with all my heart... indeed I almost worshipped him. And the greater my feeling of loneliness grew, the greater grew my love for him; but having learned the value of concealment, I closed my lips upon my secret and buried it in my heart.

But everything has an end, and so those weeks ended, and I received my diploma, and thereby drew a little away from that place where our memories — we three — lie sleeping. And as though fate wished to draw a heavy curtain over the past and its pains, my father was transferred from his post in Beirut to the Lebanese legation in America; so I traveled there, and lived there like thousands upon thousands. But one thing kept troubling my rest:

the grandeur of that country, its amusements, the young men who were presented to me at parties — nothing of all this could make me forget little Lebanon; it could not make me forget those who were in Lebanon.

— The memory of the three never ceased pursuing me... the memory of Issam, and of the two friends I had forsaken for his sake. And though I heard nothing of them, every motion I made reminded me of them... every word I heard... everything I saw reminded me of them, until it became impossible for me to befriend anyone or to love anyone.

My nerves could not bear this longing, so I told my father that I wished to return to Beirut to finish my studies at the university there; and as I was his only daughter, whom he refused nothing, I came to Beirut.

And here in Beirut I found — exactly as I had expected — I