uppose it's Sarah who's been worrying you?"

"Yes."

"What did she say?... You'd better sit down, don't you think?" He swung
round the pivoted arm-chair in front of the closed desk and pointed her
to it.

"Oh!" Hilda hesitated, and then sank on to the chair without looking at
it. "She simply said there was a lot of talk about you and me. Has she
been saying anything to you?"

He shook his head, staring down at her. Hilda put her arms on the arms
of the chair, and, shirking the man's gaze, stared down at the worn
carpet and at his boots thereon. One instinct in her desired that he
should move away or that the room should be larger, but another instinct
wanted him to remain close, lest the savour of life should lose its
sharpness.

"It passes me how people can say such things!" she went on, in a low,
thrilled, meditative voice. "I can't understand it!" She was quite
sincere in her astonished indignation. Nevertheless, she experienced a
positive pride at being brought into a scandal with George Cannon; she
derived from it a certain feeling of importance; it proved that she was
no longer a mere girlish miss.

George Cannon kept silence.

"I shall leave Brighton," Hilda continued. "That I've quite decided! I
don't like leaving your sister, as ill as she is! But really--" And she
thought how prudent she was, and how capable of taking care of
herself--she all alone in the world!

"Where should you go to? Bursley? The Orgreaves?" George Cannon asked
absently and carelessly.

"I don't know," said Hilda, with curtness.

He stepped aside, in the direction of the window, and examined curiously
the surface of the glass, as though in search of a concealed message
which it might contain. In a new and much more animated voice he said to
the window:

"Of course I know it's all my fault!"

Hilda glanced up at his back; he was still not more than three feet away
from her.

"How is it your fault?" she asked, after a pause.

He made another pause.

"The way I look at you," he said.

These apparently simple words made Hilda tremble, and deprived her of
speech. They shifted the conversation to another plane. 'The way I look
at you! The way I look at you!' What did he mean? How did he look at
her? She could not imagine what he was driving at! Yes, she could! She
knew quite well. All the time, while pretending to herself not to
understand, she understood. It was staggering, but she perfectly
understood. He had looked at h