-Bunny's
likes and dislikes, Bunny's amazing development.

Only once was Langrishe's name mentioned. He had sent home a beautiful
mug of beaten silver for Bunny. At the sound of his name Nelly's eyes
were suddenly startled: she caught her breath; the colour swept over her
face and ebbed away, leaving her paler than before.

Presently the luncheon-hour was over and Bunny had been carried off for
his afternoon's outing. The half-hour or so in the drawing-room was
over. Nelly was drawing on her gloves, standing by the window which
over-looked the narrow slip of square, invisible now for the flowers on
the balcony. The fateful visit was nearly at an end and Godfrey
Langrishe's name had been mentioned only once.

She had a wild thought that her one opportunity was slipping out of her
grasp. She had come here to have news of him. She must not come again.
She must try and forget that he existed till such time at least as she
could think of him calmly. Now she _must_ know, she _must_ hear, what
was happening to him away there at the end of the world.

She glanced furtively around the pretty room, to which she would not
come again. It was as though she said farewell to its comfort and
pleasantness. She was not going to see Bunny and his mother again, not
for a long time at least. Her gaze came back to the window, pausing ever
so slightly on its way to glance at a portrait of Langrishe which hung
on the wall, a portrait painted in the days when he had been his uncle's
heir, by a great painter. She had been conscious all the time she had
been in the room of the presence of the portrait although she had not
looked its way. The picture had caught the quiet passion and intensity
of Godfrey Langrishe's gaze, as though he looked on deeds of glory and
fought his way towards them. The face was less stern than she remembered
it; it had yet some of the bloom and bonniness of his boyhood;
renunciation had not written its deeper meaning in lines about the lips
and eyes.

She opened her mouth to speak of him, but at first no words would come.
The fastening of her glove took all her attention it seemed. She had
turned to the light for it, away from Mrs. Rooke's sympathetic glances.

She had almost controlled her voice to speak without trembling when the
thing was taken out of her hands.

"I must not let you go," Mrs. Rooke said, "without giving you a message
from Godfrey. A message and gift. It came a week ago. See--here it is. I
was g