A lingering hand-pressure, a steady look into each other's eyes, reading the present anguish there, reading also the future trust, and then their lips met--surely there was no wrong in it!--and a farewell kiss of pain was taken. Sir Geoffry went out, buttoning his overcoat across his chest. A fly was waiting before Mr. Duffham's house; the surgeon and Arthur were standing by it on the pavement. Sir Geoffry got inside. "Good-bye, Sir Geoffry!" cried the little lad, as Mr. Duffham, saying he should be at the Grange in the morning, was about to close the door. "I shall write and tell papa how good you've been, to give me your own Bible. I can write small-hand now." "And fine small-hand it is!" put in old Duffham in disparagement. Sir Geoffry laid his hand gently on Arthur's head, and kept it there for a minute. His lips were moving, but he said nothing aloud. Arthur thought he had not been heard. "Good-bye, Sir Geoffry," he repeated. "Good-bye, my child." * * * * * Sir Geoffry lay back in an easy-chair in front of the fire in his library. The end was near at hand now, but he was bearing up quite well to the last. Lady Chavasse, worn almost to a shadow with grief and uncertainty--for there were times yet when she actually entertained a sort of hope--sat away in the shade; her eyes watching every change in his countenance, her heart feeling ever its bitter repentance and despair. Repentance? Yes, and plenty of it. For she saw too surely what might have been and what was--and knew that it was herself, herself only, who had worked out this state of things. Her self-reproach was terrible; her days and nights were one long dream of agony. Lady Rachel was not with them very much. She lay down more than ever in her own room; and Lady Chavasse had begun to learn that this almost continuous lying was not caused by inert idleness, but of necessity. The Grange was a sad homestead now. The blaze from the fire flickered on Sir Geoffry's wasted face. _Hers_ was kept in the shadow, or it might have betrayed the bitterness of her aching heart. He had been speaking of things that touched her conscience. "Yes, it was a sin, mother. But it might have been repaired; and, if it had been, I believe God would have blessed us all. As it is--well, we did not repair it, you and I; and so--and so, as I take it, there has not been much of real blessing given to us here; certainly not of heartfelt comfort. I seem to see all things clearly now--if it be not wrong to say it."