"Lady Ellis wishes to say farewell to me," he answered. "I will go to her now." The maid led the way, and showed him up to the small sitting-room. Lady Ellis was leaning back in her easy-chair, but she sat upright when he entered. Even more than before was he struck with the white, hollow, skeleton look of the face, on which death had so unmistakably set his seal; but the disorder had arrived at that stage now when each day made a perceptible change. The black eyes, once glistening so fiercely with their vain passions, lighted up with a faint pleasure. "I am glad you came up: so glad! I thought you did not intend to see me at all." He answered that he did not know she was well enough to be seen, speaking cordially. With that dying face and form before him, three-parts of his cherished enmity to the woman died out. Not his dislike of her. "I would bid you farewell, Mr. Hunter. I would wish you--an' you will permit me--God-speed. The next time we meet, both of us will have entered on a different world from this." "Thank you," he said, in allusion to the wish, "but are you sure nothing can be done for your recovery?" "Nothing whatever. And the end cannot be very far off now. Mr. Thornycroft is going back with me to Cheltenham, and I am glad of it. I should like him to see the last of me." She was looking at the fire as she spoke. He, standing at the opposite side of the mantelpiece, looked at her. What a change from the vain, worldly, selfish woman of the past! Raising her eyes suddenly, she caught his gaze, perhaps divined somewhat of his thoughts. "You cannot think me to be the same, can you?" "Scarcely." He glanced at the timepiece. At best the interview was not pleasant to him, neither did he care to prolong it. "You fear to lose the omnibus?" "I have lost it. Your clock is slow. I am now about to start on foot to Jutpoint." "Could they not send you in the dog-cart?" "Thank you; I prefer to walk. The night is fine, and the road good. And I suppose I must be going." She stood up as he moved, and held out her hand, her silk gown falling in folds from her shrunken form. He shook hands. "God bless you; God prosper you here and hereafter!" she said with some emotion. He hardly knew what to answer. To express a wish for her continued life was so palpable a fallacy, with those signs of decay before him: so he murmured a word of thanks, and gave the thin hand a friendly pressure as he released it. But she did not release his. "It was not quite all I wished to say," she whispered, looking up to him with her sad eyes, in which stood a world of repentance. "I want to ask your forgiveness." "My forgiveness?"