loom. His eyes and head ached--he felt weary and
utterly dispirited. He had rushed away that morning after leaving Lucia
at home, and found himself by the merest chance at St. Denis. He had got
out there because his fellow-passengers did so, though at the railway
station he had taken a ticket for a place much further on along the
line. He had looked about the little town, and seen, in a blind
blundering kind of way, the Cathedral. He had come out, with about
half-a-dozen more visitors, and seeing an omnibus starting for Paris,
had got into it, because it would take longer than the train--then after
a while had got out again, because he could not bear the slow motion and
perpetual babble of talk inside. But through all, and still more in his
solitary walk, he had been thinking--thinking perpetually; and, after
all, his thinking seemed yet to do. He would go back to England--that
was necessary and right, whatever else might be. He was wanted there, as
the pile of letters on his writing-table could testify. His father, too,
was solitary at Hunsdon--and his business in Paris was over. But the
Dightons would not go for some days, and he could not very well leave
them after they had come over for his sake. He would have to stay,
therefore, till they went; he would have to go on seeing the Costellos.
He tried to fancy he was sorry for this, but the attempt was a very poor
one. For a few days he would have to go on just as usual, and after that
he would go home, and do what? That was just the question.

Ought he to go on hoping now? Had not he done all he could do? Was it
probable that a girl who had loved another man--and that man,
Percy--faithfully for a whole year on the mere possibility that he might
have remained faithful to her, and who had been throughout blind and
insensible to a regard deeper and purer than his had ever been, would be
able to transfer her heart whole and undivided as he must have it if he
had it at all? He dared not think it. "No, I have lost her at last!" he
said to himself, "and she is the one only woman in the world."

Then he remembered, as if the reminder had been whispered in his ear, a
promise he had made. It was one day during Mr. Beresford's illness, when
his mind was a little clearer than usual. He had been trying feebly to
return to his old interests, and speaking in his weak broken tones,
about the future. He grew very tired after awhile, and Maurice persuaded
him to try to sleep, but there