Cecily had nothing to say; she leant back in a limp forlornness while Mina expatiated on this doleful text. There came a luxury into the Imp's woe as she realized for herself and her auditor the extreme sorrows of the situation; she forgot entirely that there was not and never had been any reason why Harry should be anything in particular to her at least. She observed that of course she was glad for his sake; this time-honored unselfishness won no assent from Cecily. Lacking the reinforcement of discussion, the stream of Mina's lamentation began to run dry. "Oh, it's no use talking," she ended. "There it is!" "I'm going back to Blent to-morrow," said Cecily suddenly. It was no more than Mina had expected. "Yes, we may as well," she assented dismally. Cecily rose and began to walk about. Her air caught Mina's attention again; on this, the evening before she returned to Blent, it had something of that suppressed passion which had marked her manner on the night when she determined to leave it. She came to a stand opposite Mina. "I've made up my mind. From this moment, Mina, Blent is mine. Up to now I've held it for Harry. Now it's mine. I shall go back and begin everything there to-morrow." Mina felt the tragedy; the inevitable was being accepted. "You see I've been writing?" "Yes, Cecily." After all it looked as though the Imp were not to be cheated of her sensation. "I've written to Cousin Harry. I've told him what I mean to do. He must think it right; it's the only thing he's left me to do. But I've told him I can do it only on one condition. He'll have my letter to-morrow." "On one condition? What?" "I said to him that he gave me Blent because I was there, because he saw me there in the middle of it all. That's true. If I'd stayed here, would he ever have told his secret? Never! He wouldn't so much as have come to see me; he'd never have thought of me, he'd have forgotten all about me. It was seeing me there." "Well, seeing you, anyhow." "Seeing me there--there at Blent," she insisted, now almost angrily. "So he'll understand what I mean by the thing I've asked of him. And he must obey." Her voice became imperious. "I've told him that I'm going back, going to stay there, and live there, but that he must never, never come there." Mina started, her eyes wide-open in surprise at this heroic measure. "I must never see him--if I can help it. Anyhow I must never see him at Blent. That's the only way I can endure it." "Never see him! Never have him at Blent!" Mina was trying to sort out the state of things which would result. It was pretty plain what had happened; Cecily had felt the need of doing something; here it was. Mina's sympathies, quick to move, darted out to Harry. "Think what it'll mean to him never to see Blent!" she cried. "To him? Nothing, nothing! Why, you yourself came home just now saying that we were nothing to him! Blent's nothing to him now. It's for my own sake that I've said he mustn't come."