"Are you down on your luck?" he asks, sitting down by her side; "you did not seem so"--trying to harden his heart by forcing a recollection of her extravagant gaiety--"a little while ago, when you were prancing after that jackass." "Is not he a darling?" cries she, hurrying up the end of her sigh to make room for a smile of pleasure. "I want to buy him; only I am afraid he might die of sea-sickness going home." "Perhaps"--scarcely knowing what he is saying. "I should like to buy a little cart to harness him to--such a one as I saw just now going along the road, drawn by a tiny _bourriquot_ that might have been twin brother to mine. Some Arab children had dressed out both him and his cart with branches of that great yellow fennel--his long ears and his little nose peeped out so pathetically between; another child walked after barefoot, waving a great acanthus-leaf. You never saw anything so pretty! Yes, you must break mine in for me," smiling again; "it will not take more than a week, I am sure." "If it did not take more than a day even, I am afraid I should have to decline the appointment"--seizing this opening to blurt out his news. "I am off at six o'clock to-morrow morning. I--I want to see the Escurial." She had been almost garrulous about the little donkey, and he had wished to stop her. In that he has undoubtedly succeeded. How the asphodels cover the banks on either hand! They have come into full flower since last he passed this way: tall branching stem, white blossom, and pinky bud; here they are in thousands. It is a soft day, on which scents lie heavy, and their strong odour--that is scarcely perfume, and yet has an odd, acrid charm--fills the air. "Everything must come to an end," he says baldly. She is apparently not going to make any more effort to detain him than had her mother. He has every right to come and go where and when he pleases. Since Amelia died, to no human being is he accountable for his actions, and yet there is both guilt and misery in his voice as he utters his platitude. "It has been great good luck for me that you have stayed so long; I know that it is out of pure kindness that you have done it, and it has made all the difference to me. I--I am quite set up again now, thanks to you; and--and summer is coming on, and I shall do very well--capitally!" She has detected--what is, indeed, pretty obvious--the deep distress of his face and voice, and, in her habitual unselfishness, her one thought is to relieve him of any self-reproachful misgiving that he is doing aught cruel in robbing her of the support of his companionship. In her tone is nothing but the meekest gratitude. It is her misfortune, not her fault, that in it there is not cheerfulness too. But her "gentle physic," instead of curing, seems to aggravate his ill. "It must come to an end some time or other!" he murmurs wretchedly, as if to himself. "Yes!" Dead silence.