"I? No. They hardly write to me," said she, with a forlorn sense of loneliness. "But they were well, weren't they?" "My uncle was horribly cut up by--by your determination, Phillis." "I was afraid he might be sorry." She knew that what she dreaded was coming, and her heart beat wildly; but she said the words quite calmly, and as if they related to someone else. Jack crushed a flower in his hand, and leant forward. "_She_ was sorry, too," he said in a low voice. "Can't you think differently? I know I was the one to blame, but can't you let me--" She interrupted him with a hasty gesture. "That subject is at an end between us; pray do not return to it." But that it was so unlike her, he could have sworn he detected a slight accent of scorn in her voice. "Well, Phillis," he said, getting up, "I daren't do it, if you forbid me. I don't suppose I've gone the way to work to make you believe what I want to say. Perhaps I'd better have held my tongue, as I intended. It was the seeing you with her, I suppose, and thinking that perhaps-- however, if it is as you say, and the subject must be at an end, will you give me a kiss, Phillis, before we part?" She covered her face with her hands, and drew back quickly and without a word to soften the gesture. "Not?" said Jack, in the same slow tone. "Well, don't fear. Whatever I am, I won't be a bore. I understand fully all that you mean--all. It was you, remember, who promised we should always be friends--There, don't be afraid, I am going. Good-bye. God bless you, Phillis." But long after he had gone she kept her face covered--perhaps because she was trying to shut out even the remembrance of what had past, perhaps because she feared her own impulses. For as the door shut, she had felt as if her very senses went out in a wild cry to him to come back. _Not_? If he had but known how hard that moment was, how it was against herself that she shrank with the movement which had wounded him, how she had fought with the longing that his request called up! If she had kissed him she could have fought no longer, she must have flung down her arms. Why not? Why not? For the first time this persistent question seemed to have gained strength, and she set herself to answer it reasonably. Why not?