-"so I am! I had no idea of it; I
hope you have not been long waiting."

"_I_ was here to the minute," reply I, curtly; and again my tongue
declines to refrain from accentuation.

"I beg your pardon!" he says, still speaking with unnecessary
seriousness, as it seems to me, "I really had no idea of it."

"I dare say not," say I, with a little wintry grin; "I never heard that
they had a clock in paradise."

"_In paradise!_" he repeats, looking at me strangely with his keen,
clear eyes, that seem to me to have less of a caress in them than they
ever had before on meeting mine. "What has _paradise_ to say to it? Do
you imagine that I have been in _paradise_ since I left you here?"

"I do not know, I am sure!" reply I, rather confused, and childishly
stirring the stiff red mud with the end of my boot, "I believe _they_
mostly do; Algy does--" then afraid of drawing down the vial of his
wrath on me a second time for my scandal-mongering propensities, I go on
quickly; "Were you talking to yourself as you came down the drive? I
heard your voice as if in conversation. I sometimes talk to myself when
I am by myself, quite loud."

"Do you? I do not think I do; at least I am not aware of it; I was
talking to Zephine."

"Why did not she come to the gate, then?" inquire I, tartly; "did she
know I was there? did not she want to see me?"

"I do not know; I did not ask her."

I look up at him in strong surprise. We are in the park now--our own
unpeopled, silent park, where none but the deer can see us; and yet he
has not offered me the smallest caress; not once has he called me
"Nancy;" he, to whom hitherto my homely name has appeared so sweet. It
is only an hour and three-quarters since I parted from him, and yet in
that short space an indisputable shade--a change that exits not only in
my imagination, but one that no most careless, superficial eye could
avoid seeing--has come over him. Face, manner, even gait, are all
altered, I think of Algy--Algy as he used to be, our jovial pet and
playfellow, Algy as he now is, soured, sulky, unloving, his very beauty
dimmed by discontent and passion. Is this the beginning of a like change
in Roger?

A spasm of jealous agony, of angry despair, contracts my heart as I
think this.

"Well, are all Mr. Huntley's debts paid?" I ask, trying to speak in a
tone of sprightly ease; "is there a good hope of his coming back soon?"

"Not yet a while; in time, perhaps, he may."

Still there is