‘Miss Ford, may I come in? There is something I want to say to you.’ ‘Oh yes! Come in and say what you like!’ she replied; and now that she had found speech again, the impulse to reveal her agony was uncontrollable–or, rather, the power of concealing it, of speaking of other things, had disappeared. ‘Say what you like,’ she repeated. ‘If you had come to say you had brought something to kill me with, I would thank you on my knees.’ ‘Yes, I know you would, but I have not brought that,’ he answered, as the door swung open from within, and they entered. Ellen started up on seeing them. ‘Oh, sir, I am glad you have brought Miss Ford home!’ she exclaimed. ‘Leave us, Ellen,’ said her mistress. ‘Herr Falkenberg wishes to speak with me.’ Ellen left the room. Sara looked at her guest. He, too, was pale, and his eyes full of a deep and serious purpose. His heart, too, was aching, with a pain almost as intolerable as that of her own. He read the whole story; that which caused his pain was his own powerlessness to help her. He knew her better than she knew herself. He knew that it was not grief which gave the keenest sting to her present agony, but her outraged pride–the blow which had been dealt to her honour and her self-respect. It was upon that feeling that he calculated now, in what he was about to do. It was upon that, that he staked his whole hopes, as he threw. He had told her once that she might, some day, do something which conventional people would call outrageous. He was bent now upon persuading her to such a deed, and he trusted chiefly to that infuriated pride to help him. ‘Well?’ she said, with a harsh laugh, ‘have you come to talk about my missing ring, Herr Falkenberg? Do you want to know where it is, and who has it now? I can inform you that it has gone back to the man who gave it me–because–because he has sent me word that I am free. He thinks of marrying some one else.’ There was a discordant, grating sound in her voice, and she laughed again. The laugh encouraged Rudolf in his purpose. ‘I guessed it was something like that,’ he said, ‘when I saw that it was gone. The man could neither appreciate nor understand you. I have felt it for a long time.’ ‘Is that to console me?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘It should console you, in time. Women of such stuff as you are made of cannot grieve for ever for a coxcomb. If they do, they degrade themselves to his level.’ He saw the scarlet colour that rushed over her face and throat, and the strangely mingled glance she threw towards him. He had not miscalculated. ‘You did not know him. You have no right to call him a coxcomb,’ she said. ‘You slight me by—’ ‘By supposing you capable of making a mistake? There you are wrong. The only thing that can be infallibly predicted by one human being of another, is that during his life he will make a great many mistakes. I should slight you if I supposed you capable for a moment of breaking your heart for Jerome Wellfield.’