"So you are going, Adela?" he said the morning he had heard the news. They had all called her Adela in that house, and he had learned to do as others did. These intimacies will sometimes grow up in five days, though an acquaintance of twenty years will often not produce them. "Yes, Mr. Bertram. I have been a great trouble to them here, and it is time that I should be gone." "'Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.' Had I a house, I should endeavour to act on that principle. I would never endeavour to keep a person who wished to go. But we shall all regret you. And then, Littlebath is not the place for you. You will never be happy at Littlebath." "Why not?" "Oh, it is a wretched place; full of horse-jockeys and hags--of card-tables and false hair." "I shall have nothing to do with the card-tables, and I hope not with the false hair--nor yet much, I suppose, with the horse-jockeys." "There will still remain the worst of the four curses." "Mr. Bertram, how can you be so evil-minded? I have had many happy days at Littlebath." And then she paused, for she remembered that her happy days there had all been passed with Caroline Waddington. "Yes, and I also have had happy days there," said he; "very happy. And I am sure of this--that they would have been happy still but for the influence of that wretched place." Adela could make no answer to this at the moment, so she went on hemming at her collar. Then, after a pause, she said, "I hope it will have no evil influence on me." "I hope not--I hope not. But you are beyond such influences. It seems to me, if I may say so, that you are beyond all influences." "Yes; as a fool is," she said, laughing. "No; but as a rock is. I will not say as ice, for ice will always melt." "And do I never melt, Mr. Bertram? Has that which has made you so unhappy not moved me? Do you think that I can love Caroline as I do, and not grieve, and weep, and groan in the spirit? I do grieve; I have wept for it. I am not stone." And in this also there had been some craft. She had been as it were forced to guard the thoughts of her own heart; and had, therefore, turned the river of the conversation right through the heart of her companion. "For whom do you weep? for which of us do you weep?" he asked. "For both; that, having so much to enjoy, you should between you have thrown it all away." "She will be happy. That at any rate is a consolation to me. Though you will hardly believe that." "I hope she will. I hope she will. But, oh! Mr. Bertram, it is so fearful a risk. What--what if she should not be? What if she shall find, when the time will be too late for finding anything--what if she shall then find that she cannot love him?" "Love him!" said the other with a sneer. "You do not know her. What need is there for love?" "Ah! do not be harsh to her; do not you be harsh to her."