"Yes, for you," she said in a lighter tone, smiling. "But that's all you're going to be told at present." She went to the window and looked out at the falling rain. "I thought," she said, "that we might have one last little ride together, for the sake of--of the old days!" "But it couldn't--surely it couldn't be for long?" he asked, still thinking of her departure, scarcely believing the news. "I don't think I shall ever again come back to New York," she said slowly, with something that was almost a sob. "But can't you tell me why?" "No, I can't--not now!" "My poor child," he said suddenly, taking her pale face between his hands and looking earnestly into her eyes--and what gloriously luminous eyes they were that poignantly happy moment! "My poor child, is it any trouble I could take on my own shoulders? Is it anything I could ever help you with?" It was his first voluntary caress, his first spontaneous and unlooked-for touch of tenderness. Her heart was beating riotously. She shook her head. "But explain to me about Quebec." "Mrs. Spaulding has written to me and asked me to join her there. Here is the letter; read it." She handed the letter to him; it had reached her that morning most opportunely. Hartley took it, and read: CHÂTEAU FRONTENAC, QUEBEC CITY. "MY DARLING CHILD: "I am dying of loneliness up here in this dreary old town. Alfred has gone up in the woods to shoot moose or something, and Heaven only knows when he'll be back. I have decided that you and Mr. Hartley had better take a holiday and run up here and join me for the rest of the week; and then we can all come down together. I refuse to take 'no' for an answer." "That's really all," Cordelia broke in; "the rest is simply orders about the servants and messages to dressmakers and that sort of thing." He handed the letter back to her, disheartened, depressed. "Could you come?" she asked him hesitatingly. He thought over it; he scarcely saw how he could, but a desire to be near her seemed to be shouldering out all other feelings. "I should like to go, but--well, to be candid, I really can't afford it just now." "That doesn't count!" she cried happily. Then a sudden disturbing thought came to him. "But, Cordelia, how about our book? What would be done with that in the meantime? And what will become of it in the end, if you leave?" He had often confessed to her that he was no business man, that even the thought of approaching an editor or a publisher could take away his appetite for a day. "Let's not talk about that!" Her hands were on his shoulders now, and she was reading his face hungrily. "But what shall be done with it?" "Well, everything _is_ done!" she said, reluctantly, he thought. Then, slipping away from him for a minute or two, she fluttered back to the room with a bit of paper in her hand. "And as a sign and proof of the same, permit me to present you with something which is entirely your own!"