Wallace had gone about for hours, looking moody, and when he found Lettice alone in the twilight, resting on the rug, with her head against the arm of Mr. Valentine's arm-chair, he broke into a remonstrance. Lettice did not move. She only looked up slowly, and said, "I must." "There's no 'must.' It is nonsense. Why can't you stay here, always? We want you, and Dr. Bryant doesn't. How can he, when he doesn't so much as know you? Don't you see what I mean? And we do want you here." "Sissie told me I must;" in the patient undertone with which she would allude to Cecilia. "She didn't know or understand. How should she?" "But I must keep to what she said. And Felix made me promise." "He had no right. He doesn't know us all, and you do. Say—couldn't you be happy to stay here? Do you want to go to Dr. Bryant's?" "I don't think I want anything—much—only to do what Sissie told me." "Not even to stay here?" She lifted her eyes slowly again. "I'm tired," she said. "I should like to put off—if—but I can't, because of what Sissie said. I mustn't let myself want anything, except what Felix wants." "You can't be a slave to him all your life." "I'm only his. Nobody else's." "Yes, you are. You are ours too. Say you are. Say you mind going, just a little. We shall always be thinking of you. Don't you know you are our little queen—Nan's and mine?" Lettice smiled quietly, not blushing in her childish freedom from self-consciousness. "O yes, you are all so good, and you all try to spoil me, and, of course, I love you all—" hesitating,—"like you all, I mean." "Don't change the word. The first was best." "But I have to go, all the same. Please don't say any more, because nothing can change what Sissie told me. I want to ask something else. May I?" "Anything in the world." "Who will pay all the bills?" "What bills?" One hand held the other fast. "All that for—for Sissie—the doctor, and everything?" "Mr. Jasper will take nothing, and Dr. Bryant undertakes all that is necessary. Didn't your brother tell you?" "No." "He ought. Dr. Bryant wrote to him, and to us too. He says it is the last he can do for—her, you know! And it is a pleasure to him." "Thank you," murmured Lettice, and she said no more. Wallace sat gazing upon her. "You'll be sure to let us know if you are unhappy. If things don't go straight." "I have promised to write." "To me?" "No—to Prue. I have always slept in Prue's room, and Prue has been so good. Bertha says Sissie cared most of all for Prue." The day of parting drew near, and hour after hour Lettice had a question in her mind, which she longed to ask. Day and night she was haunted by recollections of her last brief interview with Cecilia, and of Cecilia's eager words, more especially the message to Felix.