'It is--it is better that you should take it yourself to them,' he says, hesitating and floundering. 'I--I--might be prevented after all from coming. There is a chance of my--my--being obliged after all to go to-morrow!' The star and moonlight are falling full on her face, lifted and attentive: he can see it as plainly as at high noonday. It seems to him that a tiny change passes over it. But still she does not suspect the truth. 'What!' says she; 'has your chief telegraphed for you? What a thing it is to be so indispensable!' Shall he leave her in her error? Nothing would be easier! Leave her in the belief that a legitimate summons to honourable work has called him away; leave her with a friendly face turned towards him, expecting and perhaps lightly hoping his return. The temptation is strong, but he conquers it. 'No,' he says, trying to speak carelessly; 'my chief is innocent this time of breaking into my holiday. I expect that he is enjoying his own too much; I am not going Londonwards; but--but--other reasons compel me to leave to-morrow.' How unutterably flat and naked it sounds! There is no mistake now as to the change in her face--the change that he has dreaded and yet known would come--the hardening of eye and tightening of lip. Well, it is better that it should come! And yet, do what he may, he cannot leave her in the belief that, as he sees, has in one moment stolen all the frank sweetness out of her eyes. 'I--I--am not going north, either,' he cries, in miserable, eager stammering. 'I--I--do not know where I am going!' 'You are compelled to go, and yet you do not know where you are going! is that a riddle?' asks she ironically. Her tone jars horribly upon his strung and aching nerves. 'Not much of a riddle,' he answers, with a bitter laugh. 'I do not know the exact road I am going to take; I only know the direction--downhill.' She fixes her eyes steadily upon his for a moment or two, a ray of compassion stealing into them. So they are to pass each other, like ships upon the sea! After all, he has not been able to wrench himself out of the arms of his octopus! A transient flash of self-derision crosses her mind for having ever supposed it possible that he could, coupled with an immense pity. This is to be their last speech together; for some instinct tells her that he will not return. Let it not, then, be bitter speech! Poor fellow! There are aloes enough, God wot, in the cup he has brewed for himself! 'Well!' she says, smiling kindly, albeit very sadly, at him, 'whether you go uphill or downhill, the birds and I must always have a good word for you. I do not know what we should have done without you; you have been so kind to us all--to me and my Prue, and my fox and my birds!' He ought to make some acknowledgment of this farewell civility of hers; but to 'ought' and to do have, since the world was, never been one and the same thing. He receives it in a suffocated silence.