And all of a sudden the tears were crowding into my eyes. I could not tell why; and I rose quickly and went to the door. It was a lovely quiet night, with a moon somewhere behind the trees, and all the sky marbled with dove-grey clouds. And I held out my arms to them; neither did I know why; but, like a child, I wanted something or somebody to comfort me. “It is no good,” I muttered, and dropped my chin heavily on my breast, and returned to my brooding, but this time over a pipe and a glass of toddy. They helped me to brighter, if no less defiant, thoughts. Would Mr Pugsley whisper awfully to his patroness of my visit, and put his head to hers in some design to bridle me? I cared nothing. I felt strong as Atlas to bear the world my new emancipation had opened out to me; my head rang with a hundred purposes of do and dare; I was my own utter master, by virtue of that discovery, and free. Let those who had ridden me look to their own harness. Early on the following morning, coming home from a brisk stroll in the November woodlands, I found Miss Christmas in my room. She had a brown fur boa round her neck, and a little fur cap on her head like a Zouave’s busby in miniature, with a pert plume. Under the boa was a glimpse of scarlet handkerchief, which contrasted rather pleasantly with the gold of her hair, and her cheeks were pink with walking. She greeted me with a troubled look, as she noticed how I paused and my face darkened seeing her there. “Am I so horribly _de trop_,” she said, “when you have nothing but your own thoughts to live with?” “That’s the reason,” I answered grimly. “You don’t make it easy for me,” she said. “And I had come to beg your pardon, Richard.” “Why should I help you out in anything, unless it were the door?” She flushed; she bit her lip; it was as much as her temper would allow her, I could see, to stand and listen. “You are really horribly rude,” she said. “I daresay I am. As a cultivated young lady of family, you should have more prescriptive tact than to provoke the natural boor in me.” “I don’t believe it is natural. I believe, in your bitterness, you are resolved to make yourself out much worse than you are.” “That is very generous of you. And you have come, moreover, to beg my pardon--for what?” Her mouth opened a little. She seemed to deprecate my expression very entreatingly. Her eyebrows took a pained arch, her eyes a speaking wistfulness. “Richard,” she said--“don’t be so angry, so unforgiving with me!” “Why do you think me either? I ask you again, what have you come to beg my pardon for?” Her lips quivered as she looked up at me. She seemed unable to speak for a moment. “It was cruel,” she whispered at last--“so cruel and ungenerous, that I could only wish at the moment that I wasn’t bound to her by so many ties of affection. But I am, and I will be loyal.” “Are you apologising for Lady Skene?”