There _was_ a difference then!--they were inclined to resent his long silence, by something more than a rebuke; they would not understand that he had been kept away against his will, by his doctor's orders, and that he had been cautioned not to write or read, or test his sight more than he could help. They had not been satisfied with his messages sent by Maurice Hinchford; they _had_ mistrusted him! It was all very strange, and intensely disheartening; he could have trusted them all his life, and he had believed that their faith would last as long as his. Presently they would know him better, see that he had not wavered in one thought or purpose, which he had formed before his sight came back; but the consciousness that they had formed an estimate unworthy of his character, would remain with him for ever, and no after-kindness, and fresh faith, would obliterate it from his memory. There was an anxious silence; then the father's and daughter's eyes met. "I think that I'll run into the City now," he suggested, feebly. He scarcely liked to leave his daughter at this juncture; but he knew her strength, her power to explain, and her wish that he should go. It did not seem natural that he should leave her with that strange young man, and, after he had risen to withdraw, he hesitated again. He went slowly into the shop, and Mattie followed him. She had read his thoughts correctly, for she said at once-- "I shall not give way before him. I am firm and cool--feel my pulse, it does not throb more quickly because I have to tell him that I will not be his wife. Before you come back, it will be all over, and I shall be waiting for you--the calm, unmoved daughter, that you see me now!" "There'll be no scene, then?" "All commonplace, and matter of fact--I will have no scene," she said firmly. "Then I'll go. God bless you, my child!--if I couldn't trust you implicitly, I wouldn't move a step." He went away, and she returned to the parlour, where Sidney had been sitting, a watcher of this whispered conference. "Now, Mattie," he said. Mattie sat down a little distance from him, and their eyes met steadily once more, and flinched not. "Now, Sidney!" CHAPTER VIII. "DECLINED WITH THANKS." It had come at last, that day of explanation. Mattie would not give way therein; she had long prepared for it, prayed for strength to sever all past ties, and leave him ignorant, if possible, of her real thoughts concerning him. Whatever happened, she would be firm, she thought; and now with Sidney before her, she did not feel that she should waver. An artificial strength it might be, but it would support her throughout that interview, whatever might be the reaction after he had passed from her sight, never to see her again, if she could hinder him.