"I must say it all now; it has been driving me mad lately. At first, it seemed so easy to get on without you; but it grew much harder as it went on, and when you stopped writing to me, I--I thought I should go mad. It was so awful, too, when I had got used to telling you things; there was no one else I could tell things to, and the loneliness of it was so terrible! I wanted to kill myself, those days; but I was too big a coward. So I got along somehow; and some days it was easier than others, but it was always hard. Only, nobody ever guessed. Oh, if you knew how I have learnt to deceive people! And there was always my work to get through, as well; it has been horrible. And I could no more help it than I could help breathing. I wanted to kill myself!" "Don't," half whispered Paul, and he came a little nearer to her. But she turned and leaned against the mantel-shelf for support, and clasped the cold marble with her fingers. "I must say it, Paul. If you like, I will go away afterwards and never see you again. But I cannot let it spoil my life any longer; I feel as though you had got to hear it _now_. When I wrote you that last letter, I said that if you did not answer it I would not write to you again, or think about you, or come and see you any more. And you didn't answer it. I got to loathe the postman's knock, because it made my face hot, and I was afraid people would find out. But they never did! I came down to breakfast every day, in the hope of finding a letter from you; and when there wasn't one, and everything seemed a blank,--oh, don't I know the awful look of that dining-room when there isn't a letter from you!--I just had to pretend that I hadn't expected to find one at all." She paused expectantly, but this time Paul made no attempt to speak. "I was never any good at pretending, before," she went on in a gentler tone, "but I believe I could deceive any one now. Only, I never succeeded in cheating myself! I used to find out new ways to school, because the old ones reminded me of you; and I had to do all my crying in omnibuses, at the far end up by the horses, because I dare not do it at Queen's Crescent, where I might have been seen. For I did cry sometimes." Her voice trembled, and she ended with a little sob. She buried her face in her hands. "So that is what you have been doing for these six weeks?" said Paul, involuntarily.