“Stop,” he cried huskily. She looked at him wondering, the blood returning a little to her cheeks. “It is the Devil!” he exclaimed. “I must have the Devil in me, to say such things and to treat you like this. You are the bravest, sweetest girl in the world, and I am a brutal idiot--worse than Mr. Romer!” He struck himself several blows upon the forehead, knocking off his hat. Lacrima could not help noticing that in place of the usual protection, some small rhubarb-leaves ornamented the interior of this appendage. She smiled at him, through a rain of happy tears,--the first smile that day had seen upon her face. “We are both of us absurd people, I suppose,” she said, laying her hands upon his shoulders. “We ought to have some friend with a clear solid head to keep us straight.” Mr. Quincunx kissed her on the forehead and stooped down for his hat. “Yes,” he said. “We are a queer pair. I suppose we are really both a little mad. I wish there was someone we could go to.” “Couldn’t you--perhaps--” said Lacrima, “say something to Mrs. Seldom? And yet I would much rather she didn’t know. I would much rather no one knew!” “I might,” murmured Maurice thoughtfully; “I might tell her. But the unlucky thing is, she is so narrow-minded that she can’t separate you in her thoughts from those frightful people.” “Shall I try Vennie?” whispered the girl, “or shall we--” here she looked him boldly in the face with eager, brightening eyes--“shall we run away to London, and be married, and risk the future?” Poor little Italian! She had never made a greater tactical blunder than when she uttered these words. Maurice Quincunx’s mystic illumination had made it possible for him to exorcise his evil spirit. It could not put into his nature an energy he had not been born with. His countenance clouded. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he remarked. “You don’t know what a sour-tempered devil I am, and how I am sure to make any girl who lives with me miserable. You would hate me in a month more than you hate Mr. Romer, and in a year I should have either worried you into your grave or you would have run away from me. No--no--no! I should be a criminal fool to let you subject yourself to such a risk as that.” “But,” pleaded the girl, with flushed cheeks, “we should be sure to find something! I could teach Italian,--and you could--oh, I am sure there are endless things you could do! Please, please, Maurice dear, let us go. Anything is better than this misery. I have got quite enough money for the journey. Look!” She pulled out from beneath her dress a little chain purse, that hung, by a small silver chain, round her slender neck. She opened it and shook three sovereigns into the palm of her hand. “Enough for the journey,” she said, “and enough to keep us for a week if we are economical. We should be sure to find something by that time.”