"Pardon me, not quite! I told you I was putting you to a test. That you failed to stand my test is the conclusion of the whole affair. We really need say no more about it. The matter is finished." She bit her lips vexedly, then forced a hard smile. "It's about time it was finished, I'm sure!" she said carelessly. "I'm perfectly tired out!" "No doubt you are--you must be--I was forgetting how late it is," and with ceremonious politeness he opened the door for her to pass. "You have had an exhausting evening! Forgive me for any pain or vexation--or--or anger I may have caused you--and, good-night, Lucy! God bless you!" He held out his hand. He looked worn and wan, and his face showed pitiful marks of fatigue, loneliness, and sorrow, but the girl was too much incensed by her own disappointment to forgive him for the unexpected trial to which he had submitted her disposition and character. "Good-night!" she said curtly, avoiding his glance. "I suppose everybody's gone by this time; mother will be waiting for me." "Won't you shake hands?" he pleaded gently. "I'm sorry that I expected more of you than you could give, Lucy! but I want you to be happy, and I think and hope you will be, if you let the best part of you have its way. Still, it may happen that I shall never see you again--so let us part friends!" She raised her eyes, hardened now in their expression by intense malignity and spite, and fixed them fully upon him. "I don't want to be friends with you any more!" she said. "You are cruel and selfish, and you have treated me abominably! I am sure you will die miserably, without a soul to care for you! And I hope--yes, I hope I shall never hear of you, never see you any more as long as you live! You could never have really had the least bit of affection for me when I was a child." He interrupted her by a quick, stern gesture. "That child is dead! Do not speak of her!" Something in his aspect awed her--something of the mute despair and solitude of a man who has lost his last hope on earth, shadowed his pallid features as with a forecast of approaching dissolution. Involuntarily she trembled, and felt cold; her head drooped;--for a moment her conscience pricked her, reminding her how she had schemed and plotted and planned to become the wife of this sad, frail old man ever since she had reached the mature age of sixteen,--for a moment she was impelled to make a clean confession of her own egotism, and to ask his pardon for having, under the tuition of her mother, made him the unconscious pivot of all her worldly ambitions,--then, with a sudden impetuous movement, she swept past him without a word, and ran downstairs.