alk with you," said Deronda urgently. "I must not
tire Ezra any further; besides my brains are melting. I want to go to
Mrs. Meyrick's: may I go with you?"

"Oh, yes," said Mirah, blushing still more, with the vague sense of
something new in Deronda, and turning away to pour out Ezra's draught;
Ezra meanwhile throwing back his head with his eyes shut, unable to get
his mind away from the ideas that had been filling it while the reading
was going on. Deronda for a moment stood thinking of nothing but the
walk, till Mirah turned round again and brought the draught, when he
suddenly remembered that he had laid aside his cravat, and
saying--"Pray excuse my dishabille--I did not mean you to see it," he
went to the little table, took up his cravat, and exclaimed with a
violent impulse of surprise, "Good heavens, where is my ring gone?"
beginning to search about on the floor.

Ezra looked round the corner of his chair. Mirah, quick as thought,
went to the spot where Deronda was seeking, and said, "Did you lay it
down?"

"Yes," said Deronda, still unvisited by any other explanation than that
the ring had fallen and was lurking in shadow, indiscernable on the
variegated carpet. He was moving the bits of furniture near, and
searching in all possible and impossible places with hand and eyes.

But another explanation had visited Mirah and taken the color from her
cheeks. She went to Ezra's ear and whispered "Was my father here?" He
bent his head in reply, meeting her eyes with terrible understanding.
She darted back to the spot where Deronda was still casting down his
eyes in that hopeless exploration which are apt to carry on over a
space we have examined in vain. "You have not found it?" she said,
hurriedly.

He, meeting her frightened gaze, immediately caught alarm from it and
answered, "I perhaps put it in my pocket," professing to feel for it
there.

She watched him and said, "It is not there?--you put it on the table,"
with a penetrating voice that would not let him feign to have found it
in his pocket; and immediately she rushed out of the room. Deronda
followed her--she was gone into the sitting-room below to look for her
father--she opened the door of the bedroom to see if he were there--she
looked where his hat usually hung--she turned with her hands clasped
tight and her lips pale, gazing despairingly out of the window. Then
she looked up at Deronda, who had not dared to speak to her in her
white agitation. She l