I had turned my chair round to the fireplace, where a little glimmer of fire was burning; for it was a wet cool day. Babiole had seated herself on a high cloth-covered footstool, and Ta-ta sat between us, looking from the one to the other and wagging her tail to congratulate us on our return to the old terms of friendship. The sky outside was growing lighter towards evening, and the sun was peeping out in a tearful and shamefaced way from behind the rain-clouds. The girl and the sun together had made a great illumination in the old study, though they were not at their brightest. 'Well, and how do you like the idea?' 'It is quite perfect, like all your ideas for making other people happy.' 'I'm afraid I don't always succeed very well.' This she took as a direct accusation, and she bent her head very low away from me. 'Has your mother been talking to you, Babiole?' 'Yes'--as a guilty admission. 'What did she say?' 'Oh, she talked and talked. That was why I didn't like to come and see you. You see, though I told her she didn't understand, and that whatever you thought must be right, yet hearing all those things made me feel that I--I couldn't come in the old way. And then at last I missed you so--that I thought I would dash in and--get it over.' From which I gathered that Mrs. Ellmer had babbled out the whole substance of our interview, and coloured it according to her lights, so I ventured-- 'Didn't you feel at all angry with me for something I said--something I did?' A pause. I could see nothing of her face, for she was most intent upon making a beautifully straight parting with my ink-stained old ivory paper-knife down the back of Ta-ta's head. 'I had no right to be angry,' she said at last, in a quivering voice, 'and besides--I am afraid--that what you said will come true.' And the tears began to fall upon her busy fingers. I put my hand very gently upon her brown hair and could feel the thrill sent through her whole frame by a valiant struggle to repress an outburst of grief. 'You are afraid then that----' And I waited. 'That he will never think of me again,' she sobbed; and unable any longer to repress her feelings, she sat at my feet for some minutes quietly crying. I hoped that the distress which could find this childlike outlet would be only a transient one, and I thought it best for her to let her tears flow unrestrainedly, as I was sure she had no chance of doing under the sharp maternal eyes. I continued to smooth her hair sympathetically until by a great effort she conquered herself and dried her eyes. 'I am a great baby,' she said indignantly; 'as if I could hope that a very clever accomplished man, whom all the world is talking about, would be able to remember an ignorant girl like me, when once he had got back to London.' 'Well, and you must pull yourself together and forget him,' I said--I hope not savagely. But there came a great change over her face, and she said almost solemnly--