To be with Sir James is, too, in itself a relief to her. With him she need not converse unless it so pleases her; her silence will neither surprise nor trouble him; but with all the others it would be so different: they would claim her attention whether she willed it or not, and to make ordinary spirited conversation just at this moment would be impossible to her. The smile dies off her face. A sigh replaces it. "How well you are looking to-day!" says Scrope, lightly, thinking this will please her. She is extremely pale, but a little hectic spot, born of weariness and fruitless hoping against hope, betrays itself on either cheek. His tone, if not the words, does please her, it is so full of loving kindness. "Am I?" she says. "I don't feel like looking well; and I am tired, too. They say,-- 'A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a;' I doubt mine is a sad one, I feel so worn out. Though,"--hastily, and with a vivid flush that changes all her pallor into warmth,--"if I were put to it, I couldn't tell you why." "No? Do you know I have often felt like that," says Scrope, carelessly. "It is both strange and natural. One has fits of depression that come and go at will, and that one cannot account for; at least, I have, frequently. But you, Clarissa, you should not know what depression means." "I know it to day." For the moment her courage fails her. She feels weak; a craving for sympathy overcomes her; and, turning, she lifts her large sorrowful eyes to his. She would, perhaps, have spoken; but now a sense of shame and a sharp pang that means pride come to her, and, by a supreme effort, she conquers emotion, and lets her heavily-lashed lids fall over her suffused eyes, as though to conceal the tell-tale drops within from his searching gaze. "So, you see,"--she says, with a rather artificial laugh,--"your flattery falls through: with all this weight of imaginary woe upon my shoulders, I can hardly be looking my best." "Nevertheless, I shall not allow you to call my true sentiments flattery," says Scrope: "I really meant what I said, whether you choose to believe me or not. Yours is a 'Beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.'" "What a courtier you become!" she says, laughing honestly for almost the first time to-day. It is so strange to hear James Scrope say anything high-flown or sentimental. She is a little bit afraid that he knows why she is sorry, yet, after all, she hardly frets over the fact of his knowing. Dear Jim! he is always kind, and sweet, and thoughtful! Even if he does understand, he is quite safe to look as if he didn't. And that is always such a comfort! And Sir James, watching her, and marking the grief upon her face, feels a tightening at his heart, and a longing to succor her, and to go forth--if need be--and fight for her as did the knights of old for those they loved, until "just and mightie death, whom none can advise," enfolded him in his arms.