It was perhaps the hardest task I had ever been forced to perform when after that ominous pause, which doubtless seemed far more prolonged to me than to the others, I held out my hand, as I was expected to do, taking Miss Cunningham's ice-cold fingers in mine, and wishing her happiness. Then I was obliged to turn to Wildred, in whose eyes I saw, or fancied I saw, a malicious light of comprehension and triumphant defiance. But his hand I would not take. "It is hardly necessary to congratulate you," I said haltingly. "You are one of the most fortunate men in the world." "And the most undeserving?" It was he who added the words, as though he had read them in my own mind; and there was a slight, sarcastic rising inflection of the voice at the end of the sentence, as if he put it to me as a question. Of course, I vouchsafed him no answer, unless he found it in my eyes, which have ever been telltales. But in that moment I would have laid down my life could I have wrenched from my memory that episode of his history, the secret of which it mercilessly withheld from me. I have a dim recollection of saying something more or less conventional to Sir Walter and Lady Tressidy, and then, at last, I got away. I had fancied that not to have her face before my eyes, that not to endure the pang of seeing them together, and to escape into the open air, would relieve the tension of my feelings. But it was not so. The moment the door had closed behind me the agony of the thought that I had seen her perhaps for the last time, and the poignancy of my regret that I had not been able to put to her one question which rang in my brain, became well-nigh unendurable. I walked rapidly away from the house, telling myself that the best thing for me would be to leave England again at once. I had been a fool to fancy myself homesick, and to come back--to _this_. So far my life had been lived contentedly enough apart from the influence or love of women. What strange weakness of the soul had seized me that I should thus have yielded without a struggle to a single glance from a pair of violet eyes? Yes, assuredly the sooner I got away the better. There had been nothing save a restless desire for home to bring me to my native land. There was _less_ than nothing to keep me there. Never to see her again--never again! I believed that my mind was made up, and yet I think I would have cut off my hand for the chance of one more moment with her--one more glimpse of her face to take away across the sea, even though she neither saw nor spoke to me. I walked aimlessly in the darkness, knowing not and caring not where I went. I heard a clock strike eight, realising suddenly that I was far from my hotel, and that I had wearied myself uselessly.