she added darkly.

In another minute he had left the Vicarage and, with Beatrice at his
side, was walking smartly towards the station.

"This is very melancholy," he said, after a few moments' silence.

"Going away generally is," she answered--"either for those who go or
those who stay behind," she added.

"Or for both," he said.

Then came another pause; he broke it.

"Miss Beatrice, may I write to you?"

"Certainly, if you like."

"And will you answer my letters?"

"Yes, I will answer them."

"If I had my way, then, you should spend a good deal of your time in
writing," he said. "You don't know," he added earnestly, "what a delight
it has been to me to learn to know you. I have had no greater pleasure
in my life."

"I am glad," Beatrice answered shortly.

"By the way," Geoffrey said presently, "there is something I want to ask
you. You are as good as a reference book for quotations, you know. Some
lines have been haunting me for the last twelve hours, and I cannot
remember where they come from."

"What are they?" she asked, looking up, and Geoffrey saw, or thought he
saw, a strange fear shining in her eyes.

"Here are four of them," he answered unconcernedly; "we have no time for
long quotations:

"'That shall be to-morrow,
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight.'"

Beatrice heard--heard the very lines which had been upon her lips in the
wild midnight that had gone. Her heart seemed to stop; she became
white as the dead, stumbled, and nearly fell. With a supreme effort she
recovered herself.

"I think that you must know the lines, Mr. Bingham," she said in a low
voice. "They come from a poem of Browning's, called 'A Woman's Last
Word.'"

Geoffrey made no answer; what was he to say? For a while they walked
on in silence. They were getting close to the station now. Separation,
perhaps for ever, was very near. An overmastering desire to know the
truth took hold of him.

"Miss Beatrice," he said again, "you look pale. Did you sleep well last
night?"

"No, Mr. Bingham."

"Did you have curious dreams?"

"Yes, I did," she answered, looking straight before her.

He turned a shade paler. Then it was true!

"Beatrice," he said in a half whisper, "what do they mean?"

"As much as anything else, or as little," she answered.

"What are people to do who dream such dreams?" he said again, in the
same constrained voice.

"Forget them," she whispered.

"And if