’Very well,’ said Herring: ’if it must be so, let it be so. It is a compromise, and a compromise is never satisfactory. I retain Genefer and you Orange. Ask them to come here to you on a visit of a couple or three months—temporarily—not as a permanence, and only till they have made up their minds where they will finally settle.’ ’I must accept this,’ said Mirelle, with a sigh: ’you were so very, very kind to me _before_—now that we are married, you are only half as kind.’ ’Do not speak like this,’ said Herring, hastily. ’I am what I was before, a friend, nothing further—I can be nothing further.’ ’You will be always my friend?’ ’Always.’ He drew a long breath. His heart was swelling and likely again to rend the crust and show its fires. He conquered himself and held out his hand. ’You will find that one drawer of my desk in the office is locked; I keep the key to that. Everything else is open to you. Good-bye!’ ’What, so soon?’ ’I am going away in the carriage that brought us to this place yesterday.’ ’Ah, well!—to the silver lead mine.’ ’Yes.’ ’What will be your address?’ ’You will not need it.’ ’Shall you soon return?’ ’I do not know. Good-bye.’ They shook hands. Mirelle’s lips trembled and her eyes filled. She bore Herring a sincere regard; she felt her deep indebtedness to him. She had treated him with great cruelty, and had caused him unspeakable suffering. This was a chilly separation. She felt inclined to say something better than ’good-bye’—that is, to say ’Stay.’ But she could not do this. They touched hands through the walls of ice that intervened, and that froze the word on her tongue. *CHAPTER XLVII.* *WELCOME HOME!* The weather changed with the capriciousness proverbial in the West of England. There a week of continuous frost and east winds is almost unknown. No sooner has the snow been shaken over the hills than the sky repents of its cruelty, and brings a warm breath over the face of the land, before which the white mantle vanishes as if by magic, and the grass comes forth greener than before. It was so now. The wind had changed after midnight, and a rapid thaw had set in. Herring returned to Launceston in the carriage in which he had left the day before. The post-boys had removed their favours, and the earth was putting off hers as well. Herring took poor Joyce back with him. When she came to Launceston, she desired to push on. She wished, she said, to go to Coombow and see Mistress Facey. Herring was obliged to remain the night in Launceston; he had to make the arrangements with the bank that he had undertaken. He did not go to Dolbeare. He saw no one but the banker; and then he went on his way by coach. He did not pick up Joyce. Perhaps he overtook and passed her on the road without noticing her; his mind was full of his own troubles, and he had no attention to bestow on the road and those who were on it.