Kitty was grave enough now. Her gray eyes were full of tender kindness, as they looked straight into the boy's burning blue ones; but at that kind look, the cold wave swept over him, too. "Dear Bobby! dear, good friend! no! it can never, never be. No! don't say any more. Let me go, _please_, my dear!" He dropped her hands, and turned away with a little broken sound. It was not quite a sob, but it went straight to Kitty's heart. Cruel, wicked girl that she had been! This was her friend, Tommy's friend, from petticoat-days. Was this the best she could do for him? "Bobby," she said quietly, "come into the sitting-room a minute! I have something to say to you." Bobby followed her mutely, with hanging head. She beckoned him to a seat beside her on the leather sofa. She was trembling, but she managed with an effort to steady her voice. "We have been friends all our lives, Bobby!" she said. "I am going to be honest with you; it is the least thing I can do, and the only thing. If you think a little, Bobby Shafto, perhaps--you will see why I cannot--cannot care in the way you mean, my poorest Bobby. Think back a little! There--there used to be three of us; don't you remember?" Her voice sank almost to a whisper, but her eyes were brave and honest. Bobby looked into them: then he hung his head: the comely red ebbed out of his face, leaving it very pale. "I--I wouldn't have spoken at all if he had been here!" he muttered. "Of course I wouldn't! but----" "I know you wouldn't, dear! And, oh, Bobby, I may never see him again. He may be dead, or--or--he may never think about me at all, he may care for somebody else: think of all the girls he has met since he went away! but--but you see, Bobby, there will never be any one else for me." When Bobby had gone away sadly down the hill, Kitty ran up to her room and had a good solid cry, a thing she rarely indulged in. "Tommy!" sobbed the girl, and she stretched out her young lonely arms to the empty air. "Tommy, I do want you so! Aren't you ever coming? Don't you really care? I want my Duke of Lee! Oh, how happy would this gentlewoman be, to be blessed with her Duke's good company! Oh! oh!"