y time these twenty years.'

'But where have you kept yourself? And why did you go off so
mysteriously?'

'Well, Lucy, I have kept myself a little in America, and a little in
Australia, a little in India, a little at the Cape, and so on; I have not
stayed in any place for a long time, as it seems to me, and yet more than
twenty years have flown. But when people get to my age two years go like
one!--Your second question, why did I go away so mysteriously, is surely
not necessary. You guessed why, didn't you?'

'No, I never once guessed,' she said simply; 'nor did Charles, nor did
anybody as far as I know.'

'Well, indeed! Now think it over again, and then look at me, and say if
you can't guess?'

She looked him in the face with an inquiring smile. 'Surely not because
of me?' she said, pausing at the commencement of surprise.

Barnet nodded, and smiled again; but his smile was sadder than hers.

'Because I married Charles?' she asked.

'Yes; solely because you married him on the day I was free to ask you to
marry me. My wife died four-and-twenty hours before you went to church
with Downe. The fixing of my journey at that particular moment was
because of her funeral; but once away I knew I should have no inducement
to come back, and took my steps accordingly.'

Her face assumed an aspect of gentle reflection, and she looked up and
down his form with great interest in her eyes. 'I never thought of it!'
she said. 'I knew, of course, that you had once implied some warmth of
feeling towards me, but I concluded that it passed off. And I have
always been under the impression that your wife was alive at the time of
my marriage. Was it not stupid of me!--But you will have some tea or
something? I have never dined late, you know, since my husband's death.
I have got into the way of making a regular meal of tea. You will have
some tea with me, will you not?'

The travelled man assented quite readily, and tea was brought in. They
sat and chatted over the meal, regardless of the flying hour. 'Well,
well!' said Barnet presently, as for the first time he leisurely surveyed
the room; 'how like it all is, and yet how different! Just where your
piano stands was a board on a couple of trestles, bearing the patterns of
wall-papers, when I was last here. I was choosing them--standing in this
way, as it might be. Then my servant came in at the door, and handed me
a note, so. It was from Downe, and announced that y