Understanding each other! which meant that the woman,--partly,--understood the man, and had it in her heart to be a little sorry for him in respect to the conflict through which he had come; and a little, a very little,--which was more remarkable,--sorry for the other woman thus finally foiled and done with; but that the man had no comprehension at all of the woman, and gave no particular thought to her, except so far as was conveyed in a tender, kindly sympathy for poor little Mary. Her life must not be made a burden to her any longer by his mother’s drives and her worsted work. That was all the progress Ben had made in the comprehension of his cousin’s heart. CHAPTER XV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. On the next morning Ben went away without a word, no repentance of his intention or lingering desire to postpone it having apparently crossed his mind. He took leave of his mother the night before, for he was going away early. ‘It will not be for seven years this time,’ he said, as he kissed her, and was going to kiss Mary, too,--a formula which his cousin, with a pang of mortification in her heart, felt might be better dispensed with. ‘Nay; I shall see you in the morning,’ she said, half terrified lest the blood which she felt to be scorching her cheek might ‘make him think anything.’ What should it make him think? She puzzled him a little, it must be allowed; but he was not the kind of man who can think of many different things at one time. His mind had been absorbed with the business which brought him to Renton. It was absorbed now with thoughts of what he had to do in the winding-up of his own affairs. Now and then it flitted vaguely across his perception that Mary had something on her mind which, one time or other, it would be his business to see into. Dear little Mary! Ben was very fond of his cousin. If she had wanted a hair from the beard of the Cham of Tartary, or a golden apple from the Tree of Bliss in the gardens of the Enchanted Isles, he would have done all a man could do to get it for her. But he did not know now what she wanted, or if she wanted anything,--and that was one of the matters which could wait till he came home.