There was a dead silence. At last Mrs. Romayne raised her head slowly, not turning her face towards Loring, but looking straight before her, as though utterly oblivious of his personal presence. There was a strange, fleeting dignity about her drawn face, with its wide, ghastly eyes; the dignity which comes from horror confronted. “Take their course!” she said in a still, far-away voice. She paused a moment, and then went on in the same tone. “You think this is--inevitable?” The last word came with a strange ring. “I think that any attempt at its prevention would be most undesirable,” said Loring. “It might lead--of course, it is not very likely, but still it is possible--to private speculations on Master Julian’s part!” “Very well, then!” There was a curious, hard steadiness in her tone, as of one who perforce concedes a point to an adversary, and braces every nerve afresh to face the new situation thus created. “That is like you!” exclaimed Loring admiringly. The tone of her voice had passed him by. “You will be glad, I know! Now, let me say again how awfully sorry I am to have distressed you, and then I’ll go. You’ll be glad to get rid of me!” She did not seem to hear the words, but as his voice ceased, she turned her face slowly towards him with a vague, uncertain look upon it, as though her consciousness was struggling back to him, and the life he represented, across a great gulf. She looked at him a moment, and then that dignity, and a strange pathos which that groping look had possessed, gave way before a ghastly smile. “I’m afraid I’ve been making myself most ridiculous!” she said, and there was a difficult, uncertain sprightliness about her weak voice. “So awfully sorry! I’m rather absurd about speculation. Old memories with which I needn’t bore you! You’ll look after my boy, then? Thanks!” She held out her hand as she spoke with a little affected gesture, but as he placed his hand in it her fingers closed with an icy clutch. “And now, do you know, I must send you away! Too bad, isn’t it? But there is such a thing as dressing for dinner.” “Quite so,” returned Loring gaily. “It is very good of you to have been bothered with me so long! Good-bye!” “Good-bye!” she answered. “You’ll report progress, of course?” “Certainly! We’re a pair of conspirators, are we not?” When Mrs. Romayne came down to dinner that night her face was as haggard as though the interval intervening had held for her another three days’ illness. But the hard determination in her eyes was more intense than ever. END OF VOL. II F. M. EVANS AND CO., LIMITED, PRINTERS, CRYSTAL PALACE, S.E. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Valiant Ignorance; vol. 2 of 3, by Mary Angela Dickens