"To the extent of attending his services when I happen to be here," she said. And Sidney gave her a pregnant look--a more honest look--angry and determined as her own. "And what about me?" he said. "What if I object?" Gwynneth was slow to answer, to tell him the sharp truth outright. "Do you mean to go your own way in spite of me, in spite of the governor, in spite of all of us?" Gwynneth saw that she could not remain at the hall and follow such a course. So this question went unanswered like the last, though for a different reason. Meanwhile Sidney was accounting for her silence to his own satisfaction, and he now conceived that the moment had arrived for him to play the strong man. "Look here, Gwynneth," said he, "this is all rot and bosh, and worse--if you'll take my word for it. And you must take my word, and take it on trust in a thing like this, or you never will in anything. I tell you this fellow Carlton is the most unspeakable skunk. But it isn't a thing we can discuss together. Isn't that enough for you? Isn't my wish enough, in a thing like this, which I know all about and you don't? Have I got to enforce it while we're still engaged? If so----" Gwynneth had raised her head slowly, and at last she spoke. "We are not engaged, Sidney," she said quietly. "Not--engaged?" "It has never been a proper engagement." "A proper engagement!" Sidney gasped. "Not a public one, if you like! What difference does that make?" "No difference. It only makes it--easier----" "What does it make easier?" he demanded fiercely. Gwynneth was choking with humiliation. It was some moments before she could command her voice. Her distress was pitiful; but the young man was already busy pitying himself. A sudden change had come over Sidney. It was not in all respects a change for the worse. His cynical aplomb had already disappeared, leaving a tremulous, an angry, but a human being behind. So Gwynneth felt a leaning to him even at the last; but this time she knew her mind. And she spoke it with equal candour and humility: it was all her fault: she could never forgive herself; but he would forgive her, when he saw for himself what the woman will always see quicker than the man. She liked him better than anybody she knew; that week at Cambridge had been the happiest week in her life; one day they would, they must, be good friends again. Meanwhile they had both made a miserable mistake. This was not love. "Speak for yourself," cried Sidney, all bitterness and mortification. "And I never believed in a woman before," he groaned; "my God, I never shall again!" And he strode out savagely into the sun; but a different Sidney was back next moment, one that reminded Gwynneth of the very old days, when he would pass her whistling with his dog. A sneer was on his lips, and his dry eyes glittered.