For a moment they stood thus, regarding one another in silence: the brown eyes still in wistful questioning, the manly blue-grey ones half-angry, half-sad, wholly puzzled. "I think not to-day," he said at last. Raising his cap, he turned upon his heel, and, retracing his steps, was soon lost in the shadow of the wood. *CHAPTER XVI* Two days later, at the same hour, Paul Charteris was seated in Helen’s drawing-room. "She is so young," Helen was pleading; "such a child." Paul sat in silence, big, manly, and troubled withal. "I feel such an unutterable brute to speak to you about it," he returned at length. "If you knew how I have struggled to keep it to myself; but it is too much, it goes beyond my strength." He groaned, turning his eyes from the delicate face, in remorse at the conflicting emotions he had raised. If only Hubert Le Mesurier were alive! There would be nothing about which to hesitate; they would talk as man to man. But the widowed Helen, so gentle, so defenceless, seeking only what was best for her child. What a brute he was! And yet, speak he must: he could no longer contain himself. He knew well enough that the next time he encountered Hazel alone he must demand an explanation of her strange manner towards himself. He felt it was highly improbable he could see Hazel without opening his heart to her. It was but right to warn Helen as to how things stood with him: it had become essential that Helen should be told all there was to tell. "Paul," she said at last, very gently, "you must go away for a time." Paul’s face grew pale. He regarded her in mute consternation. "It is for her good," she went on. "Does not that reflection make you willing to go—to bear a few months’ banishment?" Poor Paul, his elbow on his knee, his head in his hand, could only groan aloud. "Do you mean I am to go, uncertain of my fate, before I speak to her?" he asked; and the pain in his eyes made Helen waver. "Would it not be harder afterwards?" she asked, seeking to argue with him. "Suppose—mind, I do not know my child’s heart towards you, though of this I am sure, that she is fond of you in her innocent, frank way—but suppose she—she gives you permission to stay—how can you go then, Paul?" "I could go then," he cried vehemently, "far more easily than now, when all is uncertainty and torture. It would be hard; but I could go if need be," he added wistfully, "if you demand such trial of me." "It is not to try you," she made answer. "It is for Hazel’s good, that she may remain settled and undisturbed, that she may have time for reflection and to learn her own mind." She paused. Hazel’s voice was heard trilling a light air as she passed through the hall.