"We've simply run out of things to discuss," she says, her own hands clasped in front of her, walking through the gardens as if she hopes to discover where she's going when she gets there. "I haven't got anything left to say to you."

It isn't a lie, is the problem.

The things she can't say hang ugly and uncomfortable in the silences between them, and Gwenaëlle doesn't have it in her to pretend that they don't, that she can just ignore them and smile when he speaks to her of other things. It will always be there, a shadow underneath everything else, and she can't do it. Speaking with him in the manor after Guenievre had shown her that; being expected to pretend all was well and speak of inconsequential things had only made her feel sick and lonely.

She has been angry with him, that's true, but also true is that a part of her is angry with him for things that are no fault of his own - she had taken comfort in his company, once, and now she can't, now the ways he tries to offer can only hurt her. The unfairness of it lodges too deeply to make him anything but a sharp reminder that she's always going to have failed someone.