"There is nothing more," she said, once, "to say about _me_." She was willing enough to speak of him, however, and of his future, and her gentleness often moved him deeply. "We have been such good friends," she would say,--"such good friends. It is not often that a man is as true a friend to a woman as you have been to me. I wish--oh, I wish you might be happy!" "It is too late," he would reply, "but I shall not waste time in complaining. I will even try not to waste it in regretting." But he knew that he did waste it so, and that each passing day left a sharper pang behind it, and marked a greater struggle. "There is a great deal of trouble in this world," the professor said to him, simply, after watching him a few minutes one day. "I should like to know what _you_ are carrying with you to Germany." "I am carrying nothing," Arbuthnot answered. "That is my share." They were smoking their cigars together, and through the blue haze floating about him the professor looked out with a sad face. "Do you," he said,--"do you leave anything behind you?" "Everything," said Arbuthnot. The professor made a disturbed movement. "Perhaps," he said, "this was a mistake. Perhaps it would be better if you remained. It is not yet too late"-- "Yes, it is," Arbuthnot interposed, with a faint laugh. "And nothing would induce me to remain." It was on the occasion of a reception given by Mrs. Sylvestre that he was to make his last appearance in the social world before his departure. He had laid his plans in such a manner that, having made his adieus at the end of the evening, half an hour after retiring from the parlors he would be speeding away from Washington on his way to New York. "It will be a good exit," he said. "And the eye of the unfeeling world being upon me, I shall be obliged to conceal my emotions, and you will be spared the spectacle of my anguish."