Such a message would probably have availed nothing. Cecily was already at the door; she was in the room before he had done giving directions that she should be admitted. Again the likeness which had already worked on him so powerfully struck him with unlessened force; for its sake he sprang forward to greet her and met her outstretched hands with his. There was no appearance of embarrassment about her, rather a great gladness and a triumph in her own courage in coming. She seemed quite sure that she had done the right thing. "You didn't come to me, so I came to you," she explained, as though the explanation were quite sufficient. She brought everything back to him very strongly--and in a moment banished Blinkhampton. "Does anybody know you've come?" "No," she smiled. That was a part of the fun. "Mina didn't know I was going out. You see everybody's been doing something except me and----" "Everybody doing something? Doing what?" "Oh, never mind now. Nothing of any real use." "There's nothing to do," said Harry with a smile and a shrug. She was a little disappointed to find him looking so well, so cheerful, so busy. But the new impression was not strong enough to upset the preconceptions with which she had come. "I've come to tell you I can't bear it," she said. "Oh, why did you ever do it, Harry?" "On my honor I don't know," he admitted after a moment's thought. "Won't you sit down?" He watched her seat herself, actually hoping for the famous attitude. But she was too excited for it. She sat upright, her hands clasped on her knees. Her air was one of gravity, of tremulous importance. She realized what she was going to do; if she had failed to understand its very unusual character she would probably never have done it at all. "I can't bear this state of things," she began. "I can't endure it any longer." "Oh, I can, I'm all right. I hope you haven't been worrying?" "Worrying! I've robbed you, robbed you of everything. Oh, I know you did it yourself! That makes it worse. How did I come to make you do it?" "I don't know," he said again. "Well, you seemed so in your place at Blent. Somehow you made me feel an interloper. And----" He paused a moment. "Yes, I'm glad," he ended. "No, no, you mustn't be glad," she cried quickly. "Because it's unendurable, unendurable!" "To you? It's not to me. I thought it might be. It isn't." "Yes, to me, to me! Oh, end it for me, Harry, end it for me!" She was imploring, she was the suppliant. The reversal of parts, strange in itself, hardly seemed strange to Harry Tristram. And it made him quite his old self again. He felt that he had something to give. But her next words shattered that delusion. "You must take it back. Let me give it back to you," she prayed. He was silent a full minute before he answered slowly and coldly: