"Say it isn't true!" she whispered--"Amadis--oh my love, say it isn't true!" Her little hands caressed him--she drew his head down towards her and her pleading kiss touched his lips. "Say that you didn't really mean it!--that you love me still--Amadis!--you could not be cruel!--you will not break my heart!--" But he was too angry to be pitiful. Her scream had infuriated him--he thought it would alarm the street, bring up the servant, and give rise to all sorts of scandal in which he might be implicated, and he roughly loosened her clinging arms from his neck and pushed her from him. "Break your heart!" he exclaimed, bitterly--"I wish I could break your temper! You behave like a madwoman; I shall go away to my room! When I come back I expect to find you calm, and reasonable--or else, gone! Remember!" She stood gazing at him as though petrified. He swung past her rapidly, and opening the principal door of the studio passed through it and disappeared. She ran to it--tried to open it--it was locked on the other side. She was alone. She looked about her bewildered, like a child that has lost its way. She saw her pretty little velvet hat on the settee where she had left it, and in a trembling hurry she put it on--then paused. Going on tip-toe to the easel, she looked vaguely at her own portrait and smiled. "You must be good and reasonable!" she said, waving her hand to it--"When you have lost every thing in the world, you must be calm! You mustn't think of love any more!--that's only a fancy!--you mustn't--no, you mustn't have any fancies or your dove will fly away! You are holding it to your heart just now--and it seems quite safe--but it will fly away presently--yes!--it will fly away!" She lifted the painter's palette and looked curiously at it,--then took up the brush, moist with colour, which Jocelyn had lately used. Softly she kissed its handle and laid it down again. Then she waited, with a puzzled air, and listened. There was no sound. Another moment, and she moved noiselessly, almost creepingly to the little private door by which she had always entered the studio, and unlocking it, slipped out leaving the key in the lock. It was raining heavily, but she was not conscious of this,--she had no very clear idea what she was doing. There was a curious calm upon her,--a kind of cold assertiveness, like that of a dying person who has strength enough to ask for some dear friend's presence before departing from life. She walked steadily to the place where her motor-brougham waited for her, and entered it. The chauffeur looked at her for orders. "To Paddington Station," she said--"I am going out of town. Stop at the first telegraph office on your way." The man touched his hat. He thought she seemed very ill, but it was his place to obey instructions, not to proffer sympathy. At the telegraph office she got out, moving like one in a dream and sent a wire to Miss Leigh. "Am staying with friends out of town. Don't wait up for me."