are always sad. It is said that prisoners
of many years leave their cells with a certain regret. Convalescents
often have this queer nostalgia on quitting the sick-room. Sophy had
known far more sorrow than joy in her marriage with Loring, and yet it
was with a mysterious, indescribable, contradictory pain that she held
up her cheek for his farewell kiss. He said that he would see her again
in two or three weeks. But she felt utterly sure that this was their
final parting. Very pale, she held his hand in both hers.

"I wish you all good ... all good, Morris," she whispered. "Whatever
comes ... you know that, don't you?"

"I think so ... yes. I know it," he said unsteadily.

The carriage was waiting for him. There was no one else about. She went
down the old stone steps of the portico, and stood there while he got
in. She was not going to drive to the station with him. Neither of them
wanted to say good-by in public. As he took his seat, she put out her
hand and tucked in the rug which had slipped. He caught this kind hand
and his face broke into a shamed wretchedness. One of the horses plunged
impatiently. Their hands were torn apart.

As he drove off and Sophy was left standing alone in the autumn
sunlight, they both felt as those in old times must have felt when the
sword was pulled from a wound and death came as a relief with the gush
of blood. It was like death in many ways, this parting; but it was also
an unspeakable relief.

XLIII

Loring's mother had written that Belinda was now with her at Nahant.

He arrived there late the next day, and learned that Lewis Cuthbridge
was stopping in the neighbourhood and was expected to dinner. He did not
see Belinda until she came down to the drawing-room. He was already
there alone when Cuthbridge was announced. They had never liked each
other. Now, instinct turned dislike to loathing. It was hard for them to
be ordinarily civil. But while Loring's detestation amounted to fury,
Cuthbridge only thought Loring "a sour, ill-bred cub." He was by several
years the elder of the two, and showed it. As Mrs. Loring had said, he
was good-looking, but too exuberantly so. He looked almost "made up,"
with his white forehead, red lips, shoe-black hair, and eyes of a dense,
swimming blue. And he was also slightly fat. As he sat there with
crossed legs, talking to Mrs. Horton, Loring thought the way that his
full, pleasure-loving thigh filled tight the sleek black cloth of his