"Is there some place where I could be certain of a message reaching you then? because I would have asked you to come to the flat to-day and not out here if I could have found you." She was silent for a moment. I could see she was in a corner--I felt an awful brute but I had said it all quite naturally as any employer would who was quite unaware that there could be any reluctance to give the information, and I felt it was better to continue in this strain not to render her suspicious. After a second or two she gave the number of a stationer's shop in the Avenue Mosart--. "I pass there every day," she said. I thanked her--. "I hope you did not hurry back to your work--I can't bear to think that perhaps you would have wished to remain at home now." "No, it does not matter"--There was an infinite weariness in her tone--A hopeless flatness I had never heard before, it moved me so that I blurted out--. "Oh! I have felt so anxious, and so sorry--I saw you in the _Bois_ two Sundays ago in the thunder storm, and I tried to get near the path I thought you would cross to offer you the carriage to return in, but I missed you--Perhaps your little brother caught cold then?" There was a sob in her voice--. "Yes--will you--would you mind if we just did not speak of anything but began work." "Forgive me--I only want you to know that I'm so awfully sorry--and Oh, if there was anything in the world I could do for you--would you not let me?" "I appreciate your wish--it is kind of you--but there is nothing--You were going to begin the last chapter over again--Here is the old one--I will take off my hat while you look at it," and she handed it to me. Of course I could not say anything more--I had had a big bunch of violets put on the table where she types, in Burton's room adjoining--they were the first forced ones which could be got in Paris--and I had slipped a card by them with just "my sympathy" on it. When she came back into the room hatless, her cheeks were bright pink below the glasses--and all she said was "Thank you" and then I saw a little streak of wet trickle from under the horn rims. I have never had such a temptation in my life--to stretch out my arms and cry "Darling one, let me comfort you, here clasped close to me!"--I longed to touch her--to express somehow that I felt profoundly for her grief.-- "Miss Sharp--" I did burst out--"I am not saying anything because I know you don't want me to--but it is not because I do not feel--I'm--I'm--awfully sorry--May not I perhaps send some roses to--your home--or, perhaps there is someone there who would like them--flowers are such jolly things!"--Then I felt the awfully ill chosen word "jolly" was--but I could not alter it. I believe that _gaucherie_ on my part helped though a little, her fine senses understood it was because I was so nervously anxious to offer comfort--a much kinder note came into her voice--.