ide and whispered "No."

Presently she said, "I am glad I came back from Sicily. I shouldn't have
liked you to write this to me. I shouldn't have understood."

"Do you now?"

"I think so." She looked at me frankly. "Until just now I was never
quite certain whether you really cared for me."

"I never cared for you so much as I do now, when I have to lose you."

"And you must lose me?"

"A man in my condition would be a scoundrel if he married a woman."

"Then it is very, very serious--your illness?"

"Yes," said I, "very serious. I must give you your freedom whether you
want it or not."

She passed one hand over the other on her knee, looking at the
engagement ring. Then she took it off and presented it to me, lying in
the palm of her right hand.

"Do what you like with it," she said very softly.

I took the ring and slipped it on one of the right-hand fingers.

"It would comfort me to think that you are wearing it," said I.

Then her mother came into the room and Eleanor went out. I am thankful
to say that Mrs. Faversham who is a woman only guided by sentiment when
it leads to a worldly advantage, applauded the step I had taken. As a
sprightly Member of Parliament, with an assured political and social
position, I had been a most desirable son-in-law. As an obscure invalid,
coughing and spitting from a bath-chair at Bournemouth (she took it for
granted that I was in the last stage of consumption), I did not take the
lady's fancy.

"My dear Simon," replied my lost mother-in-law, "you have behaved
irreproachably. Eleanor will feel it for some time no doubt; but she is
young and will soon get over it. I'll send her to the Drascombe-Prynnes
in Paris. And as for yourself, your terrible misfortune will be as much
as you can bear. You mustn't increase it by any worries on her behalf.
In that way I'll do my utmost to help you."

"You are kindness itself, Mrs. Faversham," said I.

I bowed over the delighted lady's hand and went away, deeply moved by
her charity and maternal devotion.

But perhaps in her hardness lies truth. I have never touched Eleanor's
heart. No romance had preceded or accompanied our engagement. The
deepest, truest incident in it has been our parting.

CHAPTER VI

Dale's occupation, like Othello's, being gone, as far as I am concerned,
Lady Kynnersley has despatched him to Berlin, on her own business,
connected, I think, with the International Aid Society. He is to stay
there for a