Drake raised his head and looked after her, biting his lip. "Why not tell her to-night?" he asked himself. There was no guardian angel to whisper, "The man who hesitates is lost!" and thinking, "Not to-night; she is too tired--to-morrow!" he left the house. Nell stood in the center of the room, her face white, her hands shaking; and Dick, as he peeled off what remained of his gloves, surveyed her critically. "If I were you, young person, I'd have a stiff glass of grog before I tumbled into my little bed. Look here, if you like to go up now, I'll have a smoke, and bring you some up presently. You look--well, you look as if you were going to have the measles, my child." Nell laughed discordantly. "Do I?" she said, pushing the hair from her forehead with both hands, and staring before her vacantly. "Perhaps I am." "Measles--or influenza," he said, with a pursing of the lips. "Get up to bed, Nell." "I'm going," she said. She came round the table, and, leaning both hands on his shoulders, bent her lovely head and kissed him. "Dick, you--you care for me still?" she asked, in a strained voice. He stared at her, as, brother like, he wiped the kiss from his lips. "Care for you? What----Look here, Nell, you're behaving like a second-class idiot. And your lips are like fire. I'm dashed if I don't think you are going to have something." She laughed and shook her head, and went upstairs. How long the few stairs seemed! Or was it that her legs seemed to have become like lead? As she passed Mrs. Lorton's room, that lady's voice called to her. Nell opened the door, leaning against it. "Is that you, Eleanor?" said Mrs. Lorton. "What a noise you made coming in! Really, I think you might have shown some consideration. You know how lightly I sleep. I've the news for you." There was a touch of self-satisfaction in her voice. "A letter has come. Here it is. You had better read it and think over it." Nell crossed the room unsteadily in the dim flicker of the night light, and took the letter held out to her--took it mechanically--wished Mrs. Lorton good night, and went to her own room. Before she had got there she had forgotten the letter, and it fell from her hand as she dropped on her knees beside the bed, her arms flung wide over the white counterpane, her whole frame shaking. "Drake, Drake, Drake!" rose from her quivering lips. "Oh, God! pity me--pity me! I cannot bear it--I cannot bear it!" CHAPTER XVIII. Nell woke with that sickening sense of loss which all of us have experienced--that is, all of us who have gone to bed with sorrow lying heavily upon our hearts. The autumnal sun was pouring in through the windows, the birds were singing; some of them waiting on the tree outside for the crumbs which Nell had been in the habit, ever since she was a child, of throwing to them. Even in her misery of last night she had not forgotten the birds; in the misery of her awakening she remembered them, and went unsteadily to the lattice window.