This, at least, was not easy for him. Her hands were trembling in his clasp. The thought came to him that perhaps some agitation she wished to hide had driven her from the room within, and she had come to him for momentary refuge because he was near. She looked up at him for a second with a touch of desperation in her eyes, and then he saw her get over it, and she spoke. "Jack and Janey will miss you very much," she said. "You have been very kind to them. I think--it is your way to be good to every one." "My opportunities of being good have been limited," he said. "If--if one should present itself,"--and he held her hands a little closer,--"you won't let me miss my chance, will you? There is no reason for my saying so much, of course, but--but you will try to remember that I am here and always ready to come when I am called." "Yes," she said, "I think you would come if I called you. And I thank you very much. And good-by--good-by." And she drew her hands away and stood with them hanging clasped before her, as if she meant to steady them, and so she stood until he was gone. He was breathing quickly himself when he reached the street. "Yes," he said, "the professor was right. It is Arbuthnot--it is Arbuthnot." CHAPTER XIV. When he passed the house the next day they were gone. The nursery windows were thrown open, and he fancied that the place wore a deserted look. The very streets seemed empty, and the glare of sunshine, whose heat increased with every hour, added to the air of desolateness he imagined. "It _is_ imagination," he said. "And the feeling will die away all the more quickly because I recognize the unreality of it. By to-morrow or the day after I shall have got over it." And yet a week later, when he dropped in upon the professor, one sultry evening, to spend an hour with him, his old friend found cause for anxious inspection of him. "What," he said, "the hot weather begins to tell on you already! You are not acclimatized yet,--that's it. You must spare yourself as much as possible. It doesn't promise well that you look fagged so soon. I should say you had not slept well." "I don't sleep well," Tredennis answered. "You are working too hard," said the professor; "that is it, perhaps." "I am not working hard enough," replied Tredennis, with a slight knitting of the brows. "I wish I had more to do. Leisure does not agree with me." "One must occupy one's self!" said the professor. He spoke half-absently, and yet with a touch of significance in his tone which--combined with the fact that he had heard the words before--caused Tredennis to glance at him quickly. He smiled slightly, in answer to the glance. "Bertha?" he said. "Oh, yes, I am quoting Bertha. Your manner is not as light as hers, but it reminded me of her in some way; perhaps because I had a letter from her to-day, and she was in my thoughts." "I hope she is well," said Tredennis, "and does not find her farm-house too dull."