“Yes, because I take care you shan’t know me beyond a certain point; and I never mean to. No. Let me have my say now,” she went on, as he tried to interrupt her. “I’m not a bit ungrateful for your feeling: I don’t pretend not to be pleased. I am pleased. I like you, and if I were a different sort of woman I should find it easy enough to go farther; but I don’t mean to. No, no, no;” and with every repetition of the word her voice grew firmer. “Just listen to me, Mr. Buckland,” and she looked steadily into his face. “If you were to know more, if I were to tell you all the truth about myself, I’m satisfied that you would never feel a spark of anything like sentiment--the sort of sentiment we mean--again. No, look incredulous if you like; be incredulous if you like. In fact, I’d rather you should be incredulous about it; but it’s the plain truth all the same. Although we had a little wrangle this afternoon about something you fancied you saw, and that I explained in a way you didn’t like, it is absolutely true that there is something to be known about me which would make an insurmountable barrier between us. Now don’t think me hard and unfeeling: I’m neither the one nor the other really. But I am other things that the ideal should not be, and one of those things I’ll confess to you. I’m proud: not rightly proud, but wrongly proud. And that alone is enough to stand up and divide us--forever.” Even as she spoke, and as it were instinctively, she held out her hand, stretching it to its utmost distance from her, as if she were warding him off. Something in her face, her voice, her manner, made the gesture so significant that Gerard felt as if he had received a blow. “And now good-bye,” said she; “and I thank you for having suggested this walk--and this talk. I am glad we have had the opportunity of speaking out frankly. Now, in the future, all will be plain.” He would have burst out into an eloquent appeal to her to be open with him, to tell him what was troubling her, to take into her whole confidence the man who loved her, who was ready to give his life for her; but Miss Davison, with her usual cleverness, had seen and taken advantage of the approach of a group of people, foreigners on their way to the Albert Memorial, to make an effectual barrier against a continuation of their talk. She insisted on going with the stream of people, and he had to follow her, bewildered, distressed, and silent, until they turned into the high road, when she made him put her into another hansom, and shaking hands with him, drove away in the direction of Sloane Street, with a wholly conventional farewell. Gerard went home to his rooms, puzzled, distressed, and perplexed as he had never been before. Not a bit nearer the solution of the mystery which surrounded Miss Davison than he had been before.