'Cecily,' she said, and her voice sounded curiously strained, 'you must have thought me odd of late, and even sometimes not kind. And yet, my dear, I love you very well.' 'I know,' said Cecily, speaking with difficulty; 'I have understood.' 'You have understood?' Mrs. Robinson looked at her with quick suspicion, and her face hardened. 'Do you mean that my affairs have been discussed? What have you heard? What have you understood?' 'Your feeling as to Lord Wantley--and myself.' Cecily's voice sank, but she spoke very steadily, a little coldly. Surely Penelope might have spared her this utterance. But the other had heard the slow, reluctant words with a feeling of remorse and relief. 'Why, Cecily!' she cried, and as she spoke she put her arm round the girl's shoulders, 'did you think--did you believe, that I could feel anything but glad? Why, when I first saw how things were going, I could hardly believe in Ludovic's good fortune.' She added, half to herself, 'in his good taste! You are a thousand times too good for him; but he knows that well enough. Of course, I knew he had spoken to you; but as you did not tell me----' There was a note of reproach in Penelope's voice. 'How strange, how amazing, that you should have understood me so little! For the last few days,' she sighed a sharp, short sigh, 'my only really happy, comfortable moments have been spent in thinking of you and of Ludovic.' She stopped speaking abruptly, but kept her arm round the girl's shoulder. Cecily had time to wonder why she herself felt so far from content; surely the kind words just uttered should have filled her with joy and peace? 'Tell me,' she said, and as she spoke she fixed her eyes imploringly on her companion's face, taking unconscious note of Penelope's rigid mouth and stern, contracted brows--'do tell me why you are so unhappy! I would not ask you if I did not care for you so much.' 'Am I unhappy? Do I seem unhappy?' Mrs. Robinson looked fixedly at the questioner as if really seeking an answer. She got up suddenly, walked to the end of the long room and back, then came and stood before Cecily. 'Well, Cecily, I will tell you, for you deserve to know the truth. I am unhappy, if indeed I am so, because I am about to do a thing of which almost everyone who knows me--in fact, I might say everyone who knows me--will disapprove. Also, it is a thing which will separate me from all those I love and esteem, both in a material sense--for I am going very far away--and in a spiritual sense.'