Then Bertram began to think that he understood why Adela also remained unmarried, and he began to ask himself whether all the world were as cold-hearted as his Caroline. Could it be that Adela also had refused to venture till her future husband should have a good, comfortable, disposable income of his own? But, if so, she would not have sympathized so warmly with him; and if so, what reason could there be why she and Arthur should not meet each other? Could it then be that Arthur Wilkinson was such a coward? He said nothing on the matter to either of them, for neither of them had confided to him their sorrows--if they had sorrows. He had no wish to penetrate their secrets. What he had said, and what he had learnt, he had said and learnt by accident. He himself had not their gift of reticence, so he talked of his love occasionally to Arthur, and he talked of it very often to Adela. And the upshot of his talking to Adela was always this: "Why, oh why, was not his Caroline more like to her?" Caroline was doubtless the more beautiful, doubtless the more clever, doubtless the more fascinating. But what are beauty and talent and fascination without a heart? He was quite sure that Adela's heart was warm. He went to Littlebath no more that year. It was well perhaps that he did not. Well or ill as the case may be. Had he done so, he would, in his then state of mind, most assuredly have broken with Miss Waddington. In lieu, however, of accepting Miss Baker's invitation for Christmas, he went to Hadley and spent two or three days there, uncomfortable himself, and making the old man uncomfortable also. Up to this time he had been completely idle--at any rate, as far as the law was concerned--since the day of his great break down on the receipt of Miss Waddington's letter. He still kept his Temple chambers, and when the day came round in October, he made another annual payment to Mr. Die. On that occasion Mr. Die had spoken rather seriously to him; but up to that time his period of idleness had mainly been the period of the long vacation, and Mr. Die was willing to suppose that this continued payment was a sign that he intended to settle again to work. "Will it be impertinent to ask," his uncle at Hadley had said to him--"will it be impertinent to ask what you and Caroline intend to do?" At this time Mr. Bertram was aware that his nephew knew in what relationship they all stood to each other. "No impertinence at all, sir. But, unfortunately, we have no intentions in common. We are engaged to be married, and I want to keep my engagement." "And she wants to break hers. Well, I cannot but say that she is the wiser of the two." "I don't know that her wisdom goes quite so far as that. She is content to abide the evil day; only she would postpone it."