come to ask me if I know where he is?"

She failed in her attempt to reply.

"I am sorry that I can't tell you. I know nothing of him. But perhaps
Mrs. Baske does. You know their address?"

"I didn't come for that," she answered, with decision, her features
working painfully. "It is not my part to seek for him."

"Then how can I help you?" Mallard asked, still gruffly, but with more
evidence of the feeling that his tone disguised.

"You can't help me, Mr. Mallard. How could any one help me? I was
utterly alone, and I wanted to hear a friend's voice."

"That is only natural. It is impossible for you to remain alone. You
don't feel able to go to Mrs. Baske?"

She shook her head.

"But your aunt will come? You have written to her?"

"No. I had rather she didn't come. It seems strange to you that I
should bring my troubles here, when it can only pain you to see me, and
to have to speak. But I am not seeking comfort or support--not of the
kind you naturally think I need."

As he watched the workings of her lips, the helpless misery in her
young eyes, the endeavour for self-command and the struggles of womanly
pride, Mallard remembered how distinctly he had foreseen this in his
past hours of anguish. It was hard to grasp the present as a reality;
at moments he seemed only to be witnessing the phantoms of his
imagination. The years that had vanished were so insubstantial in
memory; _now_ and _then_, what was it that divided the two? This that
was to-day a fact, was it not equally so when Cecily walked by his side
at Baiae? That which is to come, already is. In the stress of a deep
emotion we sometimes are made conscious of this unity of things, and
the effect of such spiritual vision is a nobler calm than comes of mere
acquiescence in human blindness.

"I came here," Cecily was continuing, "because I had something to say
to you--something I shall never say to any one else. You were my
guardian when I was a child, and I have always thought of you as more
than a simple friend. I want to fulfil a duty to you. I owe you
gratitude, and I shall have no rest till I have spoken it--told you how
deeply I feel it."

Mallard interrupted her, for every word seemed to be wrung from her by
pain, and he felt like one who listens to a forced confession.

"Don't give way to this prompting," he said, with kind firmness. "I
understand, and it is enough. You are not yourself; don't speak whilst
you are suffering so."

"My worst