"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." * * * * * Late that night, when the guests had departed and the rest of the household was asleep, Gertrude heard Lucy moving about in the room below, and, throwing on her dressing-gown, went down stairs. She found her sister risen from the table, where she had been writing a letter by the lamp-light. "Aren't you coming to bed, Lucy? Remember, you have to be up very early." The shadow of the coming separation, which at first had only seemed to give a more exquisite quality to her happiness, lay on Lucy. She was pale, and her steadfast eyes looked out with the old calm, but with a new intensity, from her face. "Read this," she said, "it seemed only fair." Stooping over the table, Gertrude read-- "DEAR FRED,--I am engaged to Frank Jermyn, who goes abroad to-morrow. I am sorry if I seemed unkind, but I was grieved and shocked by what you said to me. Very soon, when you have quite forgiven me, you will come and see us all, will you not? Acknowledge that you made a mistake, and never cease to regard me as your friend.--L. L." Gertrude thought: "Then I shall not have to tell Conny, after all." [Illustration: Decoration] [Illustration: Decoration] CHAPTER XV. CRESSIDA. _Beauty like hers is genius._ D. G. ROSSETTI. Lucy slept little that night. At the first flush of the magnificent summer dawn she was astir, making her preparations for the traveller's breakfast. She had changed suddenly, from a demure and rather frigid maiden to a loving and anxious woman. Perhaps the signet-ring on her middle finger was a magic ring, and had wrought the charm. Frank's notice to quit had been so short, that he had been obliged to apply for various necessaries to Darrell, who, with Lord Watergate, had supplied him with the main features of a tropical outfit. His ship sailed that day, at noon, so there was little time to be lost. He came over at an unconscionably early hour to Number 20B, for there was much to be said and little opportunity for saying it. Lucy, displaying a truly feminine mixture of the tender and the practical, packed his bag, strapped his rugs, and put searching questions as to his preparations for travel. Already, womanlike, she had taken him under her wing, and henceforward the minutest detail of his existence would be more precious to her than anything on earth. Gertrude, when she had kissed the vivid young face in sisterly farewell, saw the lovers drive off to the station and wondered inwardly at their calmness. Later in the day, coming into the studio, she found Lucy quietly engaged in putting a negative into the printing-frame. "It is his," she said, looking up with a smile; "I never felt that I had a right to do it before."