ourse I expected you.'

His voice seemed to Robert curiously changed. There was a flatness in
it, an absence of positive cordiality which was new to him in any
greeting of Langham's to himself, and had a chilling effect upon him.
The face, too, was changed. Tint and expression were both dulled; its
marble-like sharpness and finish had coarsened a little, and the figure,
which had never possessed the erectness of youth, had now the pinched
look and the confirmed stoop of the valetudinarian.

'I did not write to you, Elsmere,' he said immediately, as though in
anticipation of what the other would be sure to say; 'I knew nothing but
what the bulletins said, and I was told that Cathcart wrote to you. It
is many years now since I have seen much of Grey. Sit down and have some
lunch. We have time, but not too much time.'

Robert took a few mouthfuls. Langham was difficult, talked
disconnectedly of trifles, and Robert was soon painfully conscious that
the old sympathetic bond between them no longer existed. Presently,
Langham, as though with an effort to remember, asked after Catherine,
then inquired what he was doing in the way of writing, and neither of
them mentioned the name of Leyburn. They left the table and sat
spasmodically talking, in reality expectant. And at last the sound
present already in both minds made itself heard--the first long solitary
stroke of the chapel bell.

Robert covered his eyes.

'Do you remember in this room, Langham, you introduced us first?'

'I remember,' replied the other abruptly. Then, with a half-cynical,
half-melancholy scrutiny of his companion, he said, after a pause, 'What
a faculty of hero-worship you have always had, Elsmere!'

'Do you know anything of the end?' Robert asked him presently, as that
tolling bell seemed to bring the strong feeling beneath more
irresistibly to the surface.

'No, I never asked!' cried Langham, with sudden harsh animation. 'What
purpose could be served? Death should be avoided by the living. We have
no business with it. Do what we will, we cannot rehearse our own parts.
And the sight of other men's performances helps us no more than the
sight of a great actor gives the dramatic gift. All they do for us is to
imperil the little nerve, break through the little calm, we have left.'

Elsmere's hand dropped, and he turned round to him with a flashing
smile.

'Ah--I know it now--you loved him still.'

Langham, who was standing, looked down on him som