"Oh yes, I heard of that," Janet returned, smiling. "My father thought that we were being improperly robbed of your society, and went to try to persuade you to return, didn't he? I told him I thought it a shocking liberty; but you ought to forgive him--on the ground of his disappointment." The cup Elfrida held shook in its saucer, and she put it down to silence it. Janet did not know, did not suspect, then. Well, she should; her indifference was too maddening. "Under the circumstances it was not a liberty at all. Mr. Cardiff wanted me to come back to marry him." There! It was done, and as brutally as possible. Her vanity was avenged--she could have her triumphs too. And instant with its gratification came the cold recoil of herself upon herself, a sense of shame, a longing to undo. Janet took the announcement with the very slightest lifting of her eyebrows. She bent her head and stirred her teacup meditatively, then looked up gravely at Elfrida. "Really?" she said. "And may I ask--whether you _have_ come back for that?" "I--I hardly know," Elfrida faltered. "You know what I think about marriage--there is so much to consider." "Doubtless," Janet returned. Her head was throbbing with the question why this girl would not go--go--_go!_ How had she the hardihood to stay another instant! At any moment her father might come in, and then how could she support the situation? But all she added was, "I am afraid it is a matter which we cannot very well discuss." Then a bold thought came to her, and without weighing it she put it into words. The answer might put everything definitely--so definitely--at an end. "Mr. Kendal went to remonstrate with you, too, didn't he? It must have been very troublesome and embarrassing--" Janet stopped. Elfrida had turned paler, and her eyes greatened with excitement. "_No,_" she said, "I did not see Mr. Kendal. What do you mean? Tell me!" "Perhaps I have no right. But he told me that he had seen you, at Cheynemouth." "He must have been in the audience," Elfrida returned, in a voice that was hardly audible. "Perhaps." For a moment there was silence between them--a natural silence, and no dumbness. They had forgotten about themselves in the absorption of other thoughts. "I must go," Elfrida said, with an effort; rising. What had come to her with this thing Janet had told her? Why had she this strange fullness in the beating of her heart, this sense, part of shame, part of fright, part of happiness, that had taken possession of her? What had become of her strained feeling about Janet? For it had gone, gone utterly, and with it all her pride, all her self-control. She was conscious only of a great need of somebody's strength, of somebody's thought and interest --of Janet's. Yet how could she unsay anything? She held out her hand, and Janet took it. "Good-by, then," she said.