"If your mother consents to see me, appoint an hour to-morrow morning and let me know. I will take a carriage and go alone--" "I will come for you. I will bring my mother's carriage--" "No, I must go alone, and I prefer to go in a hired carriage. You must see that no one else is present--neither of your sisters. It is to your mother only that I can say what I have to say." "Everything shall be as you wish. But, Christine, don't be hurt if you find my mother's manner difficult, at first. She has had a great deal of trouble, and it has made her manner a little hard--" "Ah," she said, "I can understand that." "But it is only her manner," Noel went on, "her heart is kind and true." "Don't try to encourage me. I am not afraid. If she has known the face of sorrow that is the best passport between us. Perhaps she will understand me." "Promise me this, Christine--that whatever happens, you will see me to-morrow evening--and see me alone." "I promise, but it may be to say good-by." He repressed the defiant protest of his heart, secure in his strong resolve. "Good-night, Christine," he said. "Good-night," she answered. Her eyes seemed to look at him through a great cloud of sorrow, and her voice was like the speaking of a woman in a dream. There was a great and availing force in the mood that held her. Noel knew she wished to be alone and that she had need of the repose of solitude. So he only clasped her hand an instant, in a strong, assuring pressure, and was gone. Exhausted, worn out, spent with sorrow, Christine retired at once to her room, and went wearily to bed, wondering what the next day would bring. She soon fell into a deep sleep, and slept heavily till morning, waking with a confused mingling of memory and expectancy in which joy and pain were inseparably united. XVI. Noel's note came early. It announced that his mother would be ready to receive her visitor any time after eleven. It was full of the strongest assurances of love and constancy, and Christine knew it was meant to comfort and support her in her approaching ordeal. She felt so strong to meet this, however, that even Mrs. Murray's earnest protest that harm would come of the visit failed to intimidate her, and she turned a deaf ear to all her good friend's entreaties to her to give it up. Mrs. Murray's advice was for the immediate marriage and departure for Europe, but Christine's mind was made up, and could not be shaken. She was feeling strangely calm as she drove along through a part of the great city she had never ever seen before, where there were none but splendid houses, with glimpses, through richly-curtained windows, of luxurious interiors, and where all the people who passed her, whether on foot or in handsome carriages, had an air of ease and comfort and luxury that made her feel herself still more an alien. She did not regret her resolution, but she felt quite hopeless of its result. It would make matters simpler for her, at all events.