Ideala lingered unwillingly, but the reason of her reluctance to go was not far to seek. Now that Lorrimer knew she loved him she was ashamed to go back. It would have been bad enough had he been able to come to her; but going to him was like reversing the natural order of things and unsexing herself. I suppose, however, that she forgot her shyness in her desire to be with him as the time went on, and the effort it cost her to conquer her fear and go to him was not so dreadful as the blank she would have been obliged to face had she stayed away. At all events, she fixed a day at last, and one morning she announced to us, sadly enough, that on the morrow she must say farewell. She made the announcement just after breakfast, and Claudia rose and left the room without a word. My sister had never been able to speak to Ideala on the subject, but she did not cease to urge me to expostulate, and she had suggested many arguments which had affected Ideala, and made her unhappy, but without altering her determination. I could not find a word to say to her that morning, and during the slow hours of the long day that dragged itself on so wearily for all of us, nothing new occurred to me. "It will be a relief when it is over," I said to my sister. "Yes," she answered; "it is worse than death." In the evening she came to my study and said: "Ideala is alone in the south drawing-room. I wish you would go to her, and make a last effort to dissuade her." I consented, hopelessly, and went. Ideala was standing in a window, looking out listlessly. She was very pale, and I could see that she had been weeping. I sat down near the fire; and presently she came and sat on the floor beside me, and laid her head against my knee. In all the years of my love for her she had never been so close to me before, and I was glad to let her rest a long, long time like that. "Were you happy while you were with Lorrimer, Ideala?" I asked at last. She did not answer at once, and when she did, it was almost in a whisper. "No, never quite happy till this last time," she said; "never entirely at ease, even. It was when I left him, when I was alone and could think of him, that the joy came." "There was nothing real in your pleasure, then," I went on; "it was purely imaginary--due to your trick of idealising everything and everybody, you care for?" "I do not know," she said. "Do you think it was the same with him?" I asked again--"I mean all along. Did it always make him happy to have you there?" "I cannot tell," she said. "Yes, I think at times he was glad. But a word would alter his mood, and then he would grow sad and silent." "Even on the last occasion?" "No, not on the last occasion. He was happy then"--and she smiled at the recollection--"ah, so happy! It was like new life to him, he was so young, so fresh, so glad--like a boy."