Roma's face flushed. "I only wish I could forget it at once and for ever," she answered with much hurt feeling in her tone. "It is far from generous for you to answer me so." Beauchamp remained perfectly silent. "However," she continued, "I cannot believe that you will continue to feel so bitter as you do now. What I most wanted to see you for was to beg you not to leave so hastily. There is no need for it. _I_ am going away in a day or two. It will be very hard upon me if you go away in this sudden way, for of course, Gertrude will be frightfully annoyed, and altogether it will be most disagreeable." She purposely exaggerated her personal feeling in the matter, as, under the circumstances, the strongest appeal she could make to him. Captain Chancellor looked up quickly. "I am not surprised you should think so of me," he said; "but you are mistaken. I explained everything to Gertrude last night; she knows of my leaving. She is most anxious you should not think of going away at present, as she will tell you herself. But my time is up. I must go." He rose from his seat. "Are you going back to Wareborough?" asked Roma, feeling remorseful and yet indignant. "Certainly not," he answered sharply, evidently suspecting some meaning in her question. "Wareborough is about the last place I am likely to go to--wretched hole that it is. I am only too thankful to have seen the last of it." He spoke, it seemed to Roma, with unnecessary vehemence. But there was no time for anything more to be said. He shook hands formally and was off, and Roma walked slowly upstairs again to her own room, vexed with herself, vexed with Beauchamp, yet sorry for both. Half-an-hour later Gertrude sent for her. Mrs Eyrecourt was wonderfully gracious. "It is very unlucky, dear--dreadfully unlucky, just what we have all along dreaded so, but most certainly not your fault. And I don't think there will be any fuss about it. Beauchamp said something `confidentially' to Mrs Chancellor last night about the probability of his being called away suddenly by letters this morning. A friend of his--that Major Thanet, you know, Roma, really is ill--at Torquay or somewhere, and Beauchamp will most likely join him. And he has promised to visit the Chancellors at Wylingham very soon. So after all it may all turn out for the best. They leave to-morrow. And I have been thinking, Roma, considering all--you will be the better of a change, and of course you won't go to Deepthorne now--I don't see why we should not go to town sooner than we intended. We can have that house in a fortnight for either two or three months." "Very well," said Roma. "I am quite willing to do as you like." Then, after a moment's silence she added, "I am glad Beauchamp is not going back to Wareborough. I was a little afraid of that at first."