"I know it must seem to take something for granted which I've no right to take for granted. I don't believe you could think that I cared for anything but you, or at all for what Mrs. Lander has done for you." "Do you mean her leaving me her money?" asked Clementina, with that boldness her sex enjoys concerning matters of finance and affection. "Yes," said Gregory, blushing for her. "As far as I should ever have a right to care, I could wish there were no money. It could bring no blessing to our life. We could do no good with it; nothing but the sacrifice of ourselves in poverty could be blessed to us." "That is what I thought, too," Clementina replied. "Oh, then you did think--" "But afterwards, I changed my Mind. If she wants to give me her money I shall take it." Gregory was blankly silent again. "I shouldn't know how to refuse, and I don't know as I should have any right to." Gregory shrank a little from her reyankeefied English, as well as from the apparent cynicism of her speech; but he shrank in silence still. She startled him by asking with a kindness that was almost tenderness, "Mr. Gregory, how do you think anything has changed?" "Changed?" "You know how it was when you went away from Florence. Do you think differently now? I don't. I don't think I ought to do something for you, and pretend that I was doing it for religion. I don't believe the way you do; and I know I neva shall. Do you want me in spite of my saying that I can neva help you in your work because I believe in it?" "But if you believe in me--" She shook her head compassionately. "You know we ahgued that out before. We are just whe'e we were. I am sorry. Nobody had any right to tell you to come he'e. But I am glad you came--" She saw the hope that lighted up his face, but she went on unrelentingly--"I think we had betta be free." "Free?" "Yes, from each other. I don't know how you have felt, but I have not felt free. It has seemed to me that I promised you something. If I did, I want to take my promise back and be free." Her frankness appealed to his own. "You are free. I never held you bound to me in my fondest hopes. You have always done right." "I have tried to. And I am not going to let you go away thinking that the reason I said is the only reason. It isn't. I wish to be free because--there is some one else, now." It was hard to tell him this, but she knew that she must not do less; and the train that carried him from Venice that night bore a letter from her to Hinkle. XXXIII. Clementina told Miss Milray what had happened, but with Mrs. Milray the girl left the sudden departure of Gregory to account for itself.