fond of him," she replied unhesitatingly, but speaking as it
were with numbed lips. "I wanted to tell him, to thank him and hold his
hand. I told him of my promise. He spoke to me a moment in the garden,
you know. He said he was leaving to go to London early, and would wait
for me in the carriage: then we might talk. He did not wish to talk to
me in the garden."

"And you went with him in the carriage, and told him you were so
grateful?"

"Yes; but men do not like us to be grateful."

"So, he said he would do all sorts of things on condition that you were
not grateful?"

"He said--yes: I forget: I do forget! How can I tell what he said?"
Emilia added piteously. "I feel as if I had been emptied out of a sack!"

Wilfrid was pierced with laughter; and then the plainspoken simile gave
him a chilling sensation while he was rising to the jealous pitch.

"Did he talk about taking you to Italy? Put your head into the sack, and
think!"

"Yes," she answered blandly, an affirmative that caused him some
astonishment, for he had struck at once to the farthest end of his
suspicions.

"He feels as I do about the Italian Schools," said Emilia. "He wishes me
to owe my learning to him. He says it will make him happy, and I thought
so too." She threw in a "then."

Wilfrid looked moodily into the opposite hedge.

"Did he name the day for your going?" he asked presently, little
anticipating another "Yes": but it came: and her rather faltering manner
showed her to be conscious too that the word was getting to be a black
one to him.

"Did you say you would go?"

"I did."

Question and answer crossed like two rapiers.

Wilfrid jumped up.

"The smell of this tree's detestable," he said, glancing at the
shadowing hawthorn.

Emilia rose quietly, plucked a flower off the tree, and put it in her
bosom.

Their way was down a green lane and across long meadow-paths dim in the
moonlight. A nightingale was heard on this side and on that. Overhead
they had a great space of sky with broken cloud full of the glory of the
moon. The meadows dipped to a brook, slenderly spanned by a plank. Then
there was an ascent through a cornfield to a copse. Rounding this they
had sight of Brookfield. But while they were yet at the brook, Wilfrid
said, "When is it you're going to Italy?"

In return he had an eager look, so that he was half-ashamed to add,
"With Captain Gambier, I mean." He was suffering, and by being brutal he
expected to draw b