At last this painful sense of uncertainty as to the fate of one who, a few months ago, had been a part of her life, became unendurable. Pride withheld her from questioning her aunt or Jessie. She shrank from seeming small and mean in the sight of her own sex. She had made her sacrifice of her own accord, and there was a poverty of character in not being able to maintain the same Spartan courage to the end. But from Major Bree, the friend and playfellow of her childhood, the indulgent companion of her youth, she could better bear to accept pity--so, one mild afternoon in the beginning of October, when the Major dropped in at his usual hour for tea and gossip, she took him to see the chrysanthemums, in a house on the further side of the lawn; and here, having assured herself there was no gardener within hearing, she took courage to question him. "Uncle Oliver," she began, falteringly, trifling with the fringed petals of a snowy blossom, "I want to ask you something." "My dear, I think you must know that there is nothing in the world I would not do for you." "I am sure of that: but this is not very difficult. It is only to answer one or two questions. Every one here is very good to me--but they make one mistake: they think because I have broken for ever--with--Mr. Hamleigh, that it can do me no good to know anything about him--that I can go on living and being happy, while I am as ignorant of his fate as if we were inhabitants of different planets. But they forget that after having been all the world to me he cannot all at once become nothing. I have still some faint interest in his fate. It hurts me like an actual pain not to know whether he is alive or dead," she said, with a sudden sob. "My poor pet!" murmured the Major, taking her hand in both his own. "Have you heard nothing about him since you left London?" "Not one word. People make believe that there was never any such person in this world." "They think it wiser to do so, in the hope you will forget him." "They might as well hope that I shall become a blackamoor," said Christabel, scornfully. "You have more knowledge of the human heart, Uncle Oliver--and you must know that I shall always--remember him. Tell me the truth about him just this once, and I will not mention his name again for a long, long time. He is not dead, is he?" "Dead!--no, Belle. What put such a notion into your head?" "Silence always seems like death; and every one has kept silence about him." "He was ill while he was in Scotland--a touch of the old complaint. I heard of him at Plymouth the other day, from a yachting man who met him in the Isle of Arran, after his illness--he was all right then, I believe." "Ill--and I never knew of it--dangerously ill, perhaps." "I don't suppose it was anything very bad. He had been yachting when my Plymouth acquaintance met him." "He has not married--that person," faltered Christabel. "What person?" "Miss Mayne." "Good heavens, no, my dear--nor ever will."