ladies had such an air of mysterious competence to the task they
had undertaken that it seemed to Bernard that nothing was left to him
but to retire into temporary exile. He accordingly betook himself to
London, where he had social resources which would, perhaps, make exile
endurable. He found himself, however, little disposed to avail himself
of these resources, and he treated himself to no pleasures but those of
memory and expectation. He ached with a sense of his absence from Mrs.
Vivian's deeply familiar sky-parlor, which seemed to him for the time
the most sacred spot on earth--if on earth it could be called--and he
consigned to those generous postal receptacles which ornament with their
brilliant hue the London street-corners, an inordinate number of the
most voluminous epistles that had ever been dropped into them. He took
long walks, alone, and thought all the way of Angela, to whom, it seemed
to him, that the character of ministering angel was extremely becoming.
She was faithful to her promise of writing to him every day, and she was
an angel who wielded--so at least Bernard thought, and he was particular
about letters--a very ingenious pen. Of course she had only one
topic--the success of her operations with regard to Gordon. "Mamma has
undertaken Blanche," she wrote, "and I am devoting myself to Mr. W. It
is really very interesting." She told Bernard all about it in detail,
and he also found it interesting; doubly so, indeed, for it must be
confessed that the charming figure of the mistress of his affections
attempting to heal a great social breach with her light and delicate
hands, divided his attention pretty equally with the distracted, the
distorted, the almost ludicrous, image of his old friend.

Angela wrote that Gordon had come back to see her the day after his
first visit, and had seemed greatly troubled on learning that Bernard
had taken himself off. "It was because you insisted on it, of course,"
he said; "it was not from feeling the justice of it himself." "I told
him," said Angela, in her letter, "that I had made a point of it, but
that we certainly ought to give you a little credit for it. But I could
n't insist upon this, for fear of sounding a wrong note and exciting
afresh what I suppose he would be pleased to term his jealousy. He asked
me where you had gone, and when I told him--'Ah, how he must hate me!'
he exclaimed. 'There you are quite wrong,' I answered. 'He feels as
kindly to you as--