"We should have been very angry with you if you had done such a horrid thing," Cicely answered lightly, so lightly, that a hurt look crept into the brown eyes watching her. He had not dared to hope she could by any remote possibility care for him, so he said to himself. He had never dreamt such wildly improbable dreams, but he had thought she would be a little sorry to lose a friend for ever; and when he left England, he intended to leave it for ever, to cut adrift from all old friendships, all old ties. And yet she looked up at him with laughter in her eyes, and talked brightly of being angry with him, if he had gone without a farewell! He felt oddly hurt and ruffled, and Cicely, as keenly aware of the hurt, as she had been a moment before of the significant look in his eyes, only knew that her own heart was beating with an excess of joy that frightened her--only realised that the game lay in her own small hands, if only--she could play the game as it should be played. "You--have not given up your house and practice--yet?" she questioned, and her tone was still brisk, almost business-like, and there was a hurt note in his voice as he answered-- "My house is in an agent's hands for letting, and I am only going on with the work, until I can find someone to take it over; as soon as everything is settled here, I shall be off. To tell you the honest truth, I shall be glad to go." Cicely's heart leapt in an insane way, because of the sudden ring of bitterness in his accents, she moved a step nearer to him (they had both remained standing since her entrance), she had even uttered the words, "I wish"--when the door was flung wide open, and James announced, "Mrs. Deane." Cicely was not quite sure whether she most wished to laugh or cry, when this very ordinary little acquaintance, a walking mass of platitudes, propriety, and dullness, walked into the room. Too well she knew that Mrs. Deane, once established in her drawing-room, would not be quickly dislodged, and, with an inward sigh, she resigned herself to her fate, whilst Fergusson held out his hand in farewell. "I must be getting on my way," he said; "perhaps I might just go up to the nursery, to say good-bye to Miss Moore and Miss Baba?" "Of course," Cicely answered with her pretty smile. "Baba would bitterly resent it, if her dear doctor went across the sea, without saying good-bye to her." "_If_--you go across the sea," she mentally ejaculated, as the door closed behind his tall form, and she settled herself down to listen to Mrs. Deane's totally uninteresting conversation. "_If_--you--go--across--the sea!" CHAPTER XXII. "I CAME TO-DAY, TO TELL YOU SO."