gain! That is _two_!"

"Barbara has got leave to stay till Easter!"

"Nothing about Barbara!"--(with a slight momentary pang at the ease and
unconcern with which he mentions her name).--"By-the-by, I wish you
would give up calling her 'Barbara;' she never calls you 'Frank!' There,
you have had your three guesses, and you have never come within a mile
of it--I shall have to tell you--_Roger is coming back!_" opening my
eyes and beginning to laugh joyously.

"_Soon?_" with a quick and breathless change of tone, that I cannot help
perceiving, turning sharply upon me.

"_At once!_" reply I, triumphantly; "we may expect him _any day_!"

He receives this information in total silence. He does not attempt the
faintest or slightest congratulation.

"I wish I had not told you!" cry I, indignantly; "what a fool I was to
imagine that you would feel the slightest interest in any thing that did
not concern yourself personally! Of course" (turning a scarlet face and
blazing eyes full upon him), "I did not expect you to _feel_ glad--I
have known you too long for that--but you might have had the common
civility to _say_ you were!"

We have stopped. We stand facing each other in the narrow wood-path,
while the beck noisily babbles past, and the thrushes answer each other
in lovely dialogue. He is deadly pale; his lips are trembling, and his
eyes--involuntarily I look away from them!

"I am _not_ glad!" he says, with slow distinctness; "often--often you
have blamed me for _hinting_ and _implying_ for using innuendoes and
half-words, and once--_once_, do you recollect?--you told me to my face
that I _lied_! Well, I will not _lie_ now; you shall have no cause to
blame me to-day. I will tell you the truth, the truth that you know as
well as I do--I am _not_ glad!"

Absolute silence. I could no more answer or interrupt him than I could
soar up between the dry tree-boughs to heaven. I stand before him with
parted lips, and staring eyes fixed in a stony, horrid astonishment on
his face.

"Nancy," he says, coming a step nearer, and speaking in almost a
whisper, "_you_ are not glad either! For once speak the truth! Hypocrisy
is always difficult to you. You are the worst actress I ever saw--speak
the truth for once! Who is there to hear you but me? I, who know it
already--who have known it ever since that first evening in Dresden! Do
you recollect?--but of course you do--why do I ask you? Why should you
have forgotten any more than I?"