“It was not that. You did not take her by the hand, when we left; you did not smile upon her. Your adieu to her was not different from that to her mother. I watched her as you walked away. Her eye followed you, and it seemed to me I could hear her reason speaking to her heart, and saying that you did not love her, and that her heart must cease to beat for you. I think now that she gave you up then. Very likely she thought that, as you were now a _millionnaire_, she had no right to cherish the affection she had fostered when you were both poor.” “Perhaps she did,” said Eugene, musing; “but I did love her, and I intended to assure her that I regarded her with deep interest.” “Pray, what did you say to her?” demanded Dick, bluntly. Eugene recalled the embarrassment under which he had labored on that occasion; the difficulty he had experienced in attempting to say enough without saying too much; and the fear which had haunted him lest he should make her the wife of the three millions instead of himself. He had firmly resolved not to permit himself to be influenced by the contingent fortune, and this resolution had warped his judgment over to the opposite extreme. He began to realize it now, under the sharp tuition of his common-sense friend. “I told her that we should always be friends,” he replied, in answer to Dick’s blunt question. “Did you, indeed?” And something like a sneer accompanied the words. “I meant so.” “It is quite possible you did. Are you sure you didn’t tell her you could never be anything more than friends?” “Of course, I did not. I didn’t mean that.” “Miss Kingman would have been smarter than any lady I know of, if she hadn’t believed that was what you meant. Did you tell her you were going abroad?” “I did.” “Did you promise to write to her, or ask her to write you?” “Not in so many words?” “What did you say about it?” “Well, I told her--I told her I should think of all my friends at home.” “Excellent!” “Of course I meant her.” “And she, being gifted with the power to read your soul, even while you were studiously attempting to hide it from her, readily understood that all your friends at home meant herself! No, Hungerford, there was no hole in that millstone. You cheated yourself, which is of no great consequence; you cheated her, which, as the result shows, is a matter of very great consequence both to you and to her.” “Let us go to the island, and find out the facts,” said Eugene, uneasily; for, as thousands of others have done when it was too late, he regretted his excessive distrust, his overstrained prudence.