As the voice behind her--a voice so horribly familiar, said this, Christian turned round. To ignore him was impossible; to betray, by the slightest sign, the quiver of fear, of indignation, which ran through all her frame, that, too, was equally impossible. One thing only presented itself to her as to be done. She lifted up her cold, clear eyes, fixed them on him, and equally cold and clear her few commonplace words fell: "No, I thank you; I prefer not to sing any more to-night." What answer was made, or how, still touching Sir Edwin's arm, she was piloted back through the crowd to Miss Gascoigne's side, Christian had not the slightest recollection either then afterward; she only knew that she did it, and he did it, and that he then bowed politely and left her. So it was all over. They had met, she and her sometime lover, her _preux chevalier_ of a month--met, and she did not love him any more. Not an atom! All such feelings had been swept away, crushed out of existence by the total crushing of that respect and esteem without which no good woman can go on loving. At least no woman like Christian could. Call her not fickle, nor deem it unnatural for love so to perish. After learning what she had learned from absolute incontrovertible evidence (it is useless to enter into the circumstances, for no one is benefited by wallowing in unnecessary mire), that she, or any virtuous maiden, should continue to love this man, would have been a thing still more unnatural--nay, wicked. No, she did not love him any more, she was quite sure of that. She watched his tall, elegant figure---he was as beautiful as Lucifer--moving about the rooms, and it seemed that his very face had grown ugly to her sight. She shivered to think that once--thank God, only once!--his lips had pressed hers; that she had let him say to her fond words, and write to her fond letters, and had even written back to him others, which, if not exactly love-letters, were of the sort that no girl could write except to a man in whom she wholly believed--in his goodness and in his love for herself. What had become of those letters she had no idea; what was in them she hardly remembered; but the thought of them made her grow pale and terrible. In an agony of shame, as if all the world were pointing at her--at Dr. Grey's wife--she hid herself in a corner, behind the voluminous presence of Miss Gascoigne, and sat waiting, counting minutes like hours till her husband should appear. He came at last, his kind face all beaming. "Christian I have been having a long talk with--But you are very tired." His eye caught--she knew it would at once--the change in her face, "My darling," he whispered, "would you not like to go home!" "Oh yes, home! Take me home!" Christian replied almost with a sob. She clung to his arm, and passed through the crowd with him. And whether she fully loved him or not, from the very bottom of her soul she thanked God for her husband. Chapter 9.