Burnamy had not been very prompt before, but now he seemed braced for instant response. "I think he's wrong," he said, so harshly that the people at the next table looked round. "His feeling as he does has nothing to do with the fact, and it doesn't let me out." March would have liked to take him in his arms; he merely said, "I think you're quite right, as to that. But there's such a thing as forgiveness, you know. It doesn't change the nature of what you've done; but as far as the sufferer from it is concerned, it annuls it." "Yes, I understand that. But I can't accept his forgiveness if I hate him." "But perhaps you won't always hate him. Some day you may have a chance to do him a good turn. It's rather banale; but there doesn't seem any other way. Well, I have given you his message. Are you going with me to get that poem?" When March had given Burnamy the paper at his hotel, and Burnamy had put it in his pocket, the young man said he thought he would take some coffee, and he asked March to join him in the dining-room where they had stood talking. "No, thank you," said the elder, "I don't propose sitting up all night, and you'll excuse me if I go to bed now. It's a little informal to leave a guest--" "You're not leaving a guest! I'm at home here. I'm staying in this hotel too." March said, "Oh!" and then he added abruptly, "Good-night," and went up stairs under the fresco of the five poets. "Whom were you talking with below?" asked Mrs. March through the door opening into his room from hers. "Burnamy," he answered from within. "He's staying in this house. He let me know just as I was going to turn him out for the night. It's one of those little uncandors of his that throw suspicion on his honesty in great things." "Oh! Then you've been telling him," she said, with a mental bound high above and far beyond the point. "Everything." "About Stoller, too?" "About Stoller and his daughters, and Mrs. Adding and Rose and Kenby and General Triscoe--and Agatha." "Very well. That's what I call shabby. Don't ever talk to me again about the inconsistencies of women. But now there's something perfectly fearful." "What is it?" "A letter from Miss Triscoe came after you were gone, asking us to find rooms in some hotel for her and her father to-morrow. He isn't well, and they're coming. And I've telegraphed them to come here. Now what do you say?" LXII.