"It is very hard to tell you," she faltered. "You and Claudia are my dearest friends, and I cannot bear to give you pain. But I must tell you at once. It is only right that you should know--especially as you will disapprove." I turned to look at her, but she could not meet my eyes. "Give us pain! Disapprove!" I exclaimed. "What on earth do you mean, Ideala? What are you going to do?" "An immoral thing," she answered. "Good heavens!" I exclaimed, throwing down my palette, and rising to confront her. "I don't believe it." "I mean," she stammered--the blood rushing into her face and then leaving her white as she spoke--"something which you will consider so. "I cannot believe it," I reiterated. "But it is true. He says so." "_He_--who, in God's name?" "Lorrimer." "And who on earth is Lorrimer?" "That is what I came to tell you," she answered, faintly. I gathered up my palette and brushes, and sat down to my easel again. "Tell me, then," I said, as calmly as I could. I pretended to paint, and after a little while, still standing behind me so that I could not see her face, she began in a low voice, and told me, with her habitual accuracy, all that had passed between them. "And what did you think when you found he was not there?" I asked, for at that point she had stopped. "At first I thought he did not want to see me, and had gone away on purpose," she answered; "then I was ill; but after that, when I began to get better, I was afraid I had been unjust to him. There might have been some mistake, and I was half inclined to go and see, but I was frightened. And every day the longing grew, and I used to sit and look at my watch, and think--'I could be there in an hour;' or, 'I might be with him in forty minutes.' But I never went. And after a while I could not bear it any longer, and so I came to you. But the thought of him came with me, and the desire to know the truth grew and grew, until at last I could bear that no longer either, and then I wrote; and day after day I waited, and no answer came; and then I was sure he had done it on purpose, but yet I could not bear to think it of him. And I began not to know what people said when they spoke to me, and I think I should have killed myself; but I come of an old race, you know, and none of us ever did a cowardly thing, and I would rather suffer for ever than be the first--_noblesse oblige_. I don't deserve much credit for that, though, for I knew I should die if I did not see him again--die of grief, and shame, and humiliation because of what I had written, for as the days passed, and no answer came, I was afraid I had said too much, and he had misunderstood me, and would despise me. If I had only been sure that he did not want to see me again, of course I should never have written; but so many people have lost their only chance of happiness because they had not the courage to find out the truth in some such doubtful matter; and I _did_ believe in him so