“The end” ran through his mind, to the exclusion of all speakable thoughts. “And so,” she said, presently, breaking the silence, “it comes to good-bye.” For half a minute he did not answer. Then he gathered his resolution. “There is one thing I _must_ say.” “Well?” she said, surprised and abruptly forgetting the recent argument. “I ask no return. But—” Then he stopped. “I won’t say it. It’s no good. It would be rot from me—now. I wasn’t going to say anything. Good-bye.” She looked at him with a startled expression in her eyes. “No,” she said. “But don’t forget you are going to work. Remember, brother Chris, you are my friend. You will work. You are not a very strong man, you know, now—you will forgive me—nor do you know all you should. But what will you be in six years’ time?” He stared hard in front of him still, and the lines about his weak mouth seemed to strengthen. He knew she understood what he could not say. “I’ll work,” he said, concisely. They stood side by side for a moment. Then he said, with a motion of his head, “I won’t come back to _them_. Do you mind? Going back alone?” She took ten seconds to think. “No.” she said, and held out her hand, biting her nether lip. “_Good-bye_,” she whispered. He turned, with a white face, looked into her eyes, took her hand limply, and then with a sudden impulse, lifted it to his lips. She would have snatched it away, but his grip tightened to her movement. She felt the touch of his lips, and then he had dropped her fingers and turned from her and was striding down the slope. A dozen paces away his foot turned in the lip of a rabbit hole, and he stumbled forward and almost fell. He recovered his balance and went on, not looking back. He never once looked back. She stared at his receding figure until it was small and far below her, and then, the tears running over her eyelids now, turned slowly, and walked with her hands gripped hard together behind her, towards Stoney Cross again. “I did not know,” she whispered to herself. “I did not understand. Even now—No, I do not understand.” XLI. THE ENVOY So the story ends, dear Reader. Mr. Hoopdriver, sprawling down there among the bracken, must sprawl without our prying, I think, or listening to what chances to his breathing. And of what came of it all, of the six years and afterwards, this is no place to tell. In truth, there is no telling it, for the years have still to run. But if you see how a mere counter-jumper, a cad on castors, and a fool to boot, may come to feel the little insufficiencies of life, and if he has to any extent won your sympathies, my end is attained. (If it is not attained, may Heaven forgive us both!) Nor will we follow this adventurous young lady of ours back to her home at Surbiton, to her new struggle against Widgery and Mrs. Milton combined. For, as she will presently hear, that devoted man has got his reward. For her, also, your sympathies are invited.