"And yet--you have been crying?" "You can see that," says she, petulantly. "You have taken pains to see and to tell me of it. Do you think it is a pleasant thing to be told? Most people," glancing angrily toward him--"everyone, I think--makes it a point now-a-days not to see when one has been making a fool of oneself; but you seem to take a delight in torturing me." "Did it," says he bitterly, ignoring--perhaps not even hearing--her outburst. "Did it cost you so much to refuse him?" "It cost me nothing!" with a sudden effort, and a flash from her beautiful eyes. "Nothing?" "I have said so! Nothing at all. It was mere nervousness, and because--it reminded me of other things." "Did he see you cry?" asks Dysart, tightening unconsciously his grasp upon her hand. "No. He was gone a long time, quite a long time, before it occurred to me that I should like to cry. I," with a frugal smile, "indulged myself very freely then, as you have seen." Dysart draws a long breath of relief. It would have been intolerable to him that Beauclerk should have known of her tears. He would not have understood them. He would have taken possession of them, as it were. They would have merely helped to pamper his self-conceit and smooth down his ruffled pride. He would inevitably have placed such and such a construction on them, one entirely to his own glorification. "I shall leave you now with a lighter heart," says Felix presently--"now that I know you are not going to marry that fellow." "You are going, then?" says she, sharply, checking the monotonous little tattoo she has been playing on the bridge rail, as though suddenly smitten into stone. She had heard he was going, she had been told of it by several people, but somehow she had never believed it. It had never, come home to her until now. "Yes. We are under orders for India. We sail in about a month. I shall have to leave here almost immediately." "So soon?" says she, vaguely. She has begun that absurd tattoo again, but bridge, and restless little fingers, and sky and earth, and all things seem blotted out. He is going, really going, and for ever! How far is India away? "It is always rather hurried at last. For my part I am glad I am going." "Yes?" "Mrs. Monkton will--at least I am sure she will--let me have a line now and then to let me know how you--how you are all getting on. I was going to ask her about it this evening. You think she will be good enough?" "Barbara is always kind." "I suppose"--he hesitates, and then goes on with an effort--"I suppose it would be too much to ask of you----" "What?" "That you would sometimes write me a letter--however short." "I am a bad correspondent," says she, feeling as if she were choking. "Ah! I see. I should not have asked, of course. Yes, you are right. It was absurd my hoping for it." "When people choose to go away so far as that----" she is compelling herself to speak, but her voice sounds to herself a long way off.