"Poor little Claire!" Cecil melted at once, with the quick response which always rewarded an appeal to her better feelings. "Poor little Claire. You're a good child; you've done your best. It isn't _your_ fault." She lifted her bag from the table, and took a step towards the door, then resolutely turned back, and held out her hand. "Good-bye. Don't cry. What's the good of crying? Good luck to you, my dear, and-- take warning by me. I don't know what your trouble is, but as it isn't money, it's probably love.--If it is, don't play the fool. If the chance of happiness comes along, don't throw it away out of pride, or obstinacy, or foolish prejudice. You won't always be young. When you get past thirty, it's ... it's hard ... when there's nothing--" She broke off again, and walked swiftly from the room. The next moment the front door banged loudly. Cecil had gone. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. A SUDDEN RESOLVE. The next morning brought a letter from the farm bidding Claire welcome as soon as she chose to arrive, but there was no second letter on the table. Claire had not realised how confidently she had expected its presence, until her heart sank with a sick, heavy faintness as she lifted the one envelope, and looked in vain for a second. Erskine had not written. Did that mean that he had taken her hasty answer as final, and would make no further appeal? She had read of men who had boasted haughtily that no girl should have an opportunity of refusing them _twice_; that the woman who did not know her own mind was no wife for them, but like every other lover she felt her own case to be unique. Driven to answer in a moment of intolerable irritation, what else could she have said? But he had not written! What did that mean? At the moment of discovering her departure, Erskine had been consumed with anger, but afterwards, had his mother's counsels prevailed? Had he repented himself of his hasty impulse? Would the days pass on, and the months, and the years, and leave her like Cecil, solitary, apart? Claire made a pretence at eating her breakfast, and then, too restless to stay indoors, put on her hat, and went out to roam the streets until it should be time to visit Sophie in her hospital.