He hears a low sigh, not of impatience, but of melancholy acquiescence. "Then you must go on thinking ill of me." There is such a depth of dejection, as well as such an unalterable sweetness, in her voice, that the words of little Prince Arthur, addressed to Hubert, flash upon his mind: "If Heaven be pleased that you should use me ill, Why, then you must!" After all, what power in earth or sky has appointed him her executioner? "I do not wish to think ill of you," he answers sadly. "Good heavens! do I need to tell you that? I have tried all along to keep myself from judging you; but I should not be human--you must know that I should not be human--if I did not ask myself why you did it." "Why I left Florence?" "Yes." She sits stock-still for a moment, the very little colour that there ever was in it retreating out of her face. "If I told you that, I should be telling you everything." He is looking at her now; after all, he cannot keep his gaze pinned to the screen for ever, and, as he looks, he sees an emotion of so transcendently painful a nature set her little sad features working, that the one impulse that dominates him is to ease her suffering. Poor little docile creature! She is going to tell him her secret, since he exacts it, though it is only with a rending asunder of soul and body that it can be revealed. He puts out his hand hurriedly, with a gesture as of prohibition. "Then do not tell me." She sinks back upon her _haik_ with a movement of relief, and puts up her fine handkerchief to her pale lips. There is a perfect silence between them for awhile. At his elbow is a great un-English, unwintry nosegay of asphodel and iris. He passes his fingers absently over the freakish spikes. "How did he take it? how did he take it at first?" Her voice, though now tolerably distinct, is stamped with that character of awe which fills us all at approaching a great calamity. "He would not believe it at first; and then he cried a great deal--oh, an immense deal!"--with an accent of astonishment, even at the recollection of his friend's tear-power--"and then--oh, then, he thought of putting an end to himself!" Jim had meant to have made this relation in a tone of dispassionate narrative, but against his will and intention, as his memory recalls what seem to him the unworthy antics played by Byng's grief, his voice takes a sarcastic inflection. The horror written on his auditor's face as he utters the latest clause of his sentence recalls him to himself. "Do not be afraid!" he says, in a tone which has no longer anything akin to a sneer in it, though it is not devoid of bitterness; "the impulse was a short-lived one; he is not thinking of putting an end to himself now, I can assure you of that; he is only thinking of how he can best amuse himself. Whether he is much more successful in that than he was in the former, I am not so sure." Her eyes have dropped to her own fragile, ringless hands as they lie on her lap.