"I could not eat," she said. "I do not want anything, and I shall not be exhausted. Let us go; this house makes me shudder," and she moved to the window and passed out. "Laura, my dear Laura," murmured Stephen, in his most dulcet tones, "why are you angry with me?" "I am not angry with you," she said, and the voice, cold and constrained, did not seem the same as that in which she had greeted him a quarter of an hour ago. "I am angry with myself; I am filled with self-scorn." "My dear Laura," he began, soothingly, but she interrupted him with a gesture. "You are quite right; I was wrong to come. You have not said so in so many words, but your face, your eyes, your very smile have told me so plainly." "What have I said?" "Nothing," she answered, without hesitation, and with the same air of cold conviction. "If you had said angry words, had been harsh and annoyed openly, and yet been glad to see me, I could have forgiven myself, but you were not glad to see me. If I had been in your place--but I am a woman. Don't say any more. Is the station near?" "My dear Laura," murmured Stephen for the third time, and now more softly than ever, "more must be said. I am anxious, naturally anxious, to learn whether this--this sudden journey can be concealed." It was quite true, he was anxious, very anxious--on his own account. CHAPTER IX. "Come," he said; "it is all right, then. Do not take the matter so seriously, my darling Laura. The worst part of it is that you should have made such a journey alone, and have to go back alone, and at night! That is what grieves me. If I could but go with you--and yet that would scarcely be wise--but it is impossible under the circumstances. Come, give me your arm, my dear Laura." A little shiver ran through her frame, and she caught her breath with a stifled sob. "Come, come, my darling," he murmured; "don't look back, look forward. In an hour or two you will be home." "Do you think I am afraid?" she asked, and her voice trembled, but not with fear. "No, I am looking back. Oh, Stephen, do you remember when we met first?" "Yes, yes," said Stephen, soothingly, and with an anxious, sidelong look about--to be seen promenading the high road with a young woman on his arm on the night of his uncle's death would be the ruin of his carefully built-up reputation. "Yes, yes," he murmured. "Shall I ever forget? How fortunate you lost your way, Laura, and that you should have come up to me to ask it, and that I should have been going in that direction. And yet the thoughtless speak of chance!" And he cast up his eyes with unctuous solemnity, though there was no one in the dark road to be impressed by it.