"Something has happened to me; yes, something has happened!" "But what--what kind of a something? I have a right to know--I insist upon knowing; tell me!" He has grasped both her hands, whose unnatural coldness he feels even through her rather ill-fitting gloves. So strange and mean a thing is human nature that even at this moment it flashes across him, with a sense of annoyance, what bad gloves Amelia always wears. However, he is not troubled with them long, for she takes them and her cold hands quietly back. "I will tell you, there is no question of insisting. I should have told you anyhow; but not _here_"--glancing nervously round the dropped curtains--"not now!" "Why not here? Why not now?" Her face quivers. "I could not," she says piteously. "I do not quite know how I shall get through telling it; it must be somewhere--somewhere where it will not matter if I do break down!" He stares at her in an unfeigned bewilderment, again slightly streaked with wrath. "Have you gone mad, Amelia? or are you taking a leaf out of Sybilla's book? If you do not clear up this extraordinary mystification at once, I shall be compelled to believe either the one or the other." Again her face contracts with pain. "Oh, if it were only a mystification!" she says, with a low cry. "I cannot tell you here; it is physically impossible to me. But do not be afraid"--with an accent of bitterness, which he is quite at a loss to account for--"you shall not have long to wait; I will tell you, without fail, to-morrow; to-morrow morning, if you like. Come as early as you please, I shall be ready to tell you; and now would you mind leaving me? I want to have a few moments to myself before I see anybody--before I see Mrs. Byng; will you please leave me?" It is so apparent that she is in deadly earnest, and resolute to have her request complied with, that he can do nothing but step dizzily down off the little daïs, feeling as if the world were turning round with him. A quarter of an hour later he sees her leaving the party with Mrs. Byng, looking as simple, as collected, and not very perceptibly paler than usual. CHAPTER XX. There is always something in the nature of a mountain in a night that is interposed between us and either any promised pleasure or any threatened pain. In the case of pleasure, we are naturally in a hurry to scale it, in order to see how full of sunshine and flowers is the happy valley on the other side; and in the case of pain, we are all scarcely less eager to ascertain how deep is the abyss, how choking the swamp, how angry the waves that wait us beyond the dusty hill.