. It was to tell you to go. I knew something painful was
coming."

He took his hat. "The pains and the pleasures of this day," he said to
his kinsman, "I shall equally never forget. Knowing you," and he offered
his hand to Miss Searle, "has been the pleasure of pleasures. I hoped
something more might have come of it."

"A monstrous deal too much has come of it!" Mr. Searle irrepressibly
declared.

His departing guest looked at him mildly, almost benignantly, from head
to foot, and then with closed eyes and some collapse of strength, "I'm
afraid so, I can't stand more," he went on. I gave him my arm and we
crossed the threshold. As we passed out I heard Miss Searle break into
loud weeping.

"We shall hear from each other yet, I take it!" her brother pursued,
harassing our retreat.

My friend stopped, turning round on him fiercely. "You very impossible
man!" he cried in his face.

"Do you mean to say you'll not prosecute?" Mr. Searle kept it up. "I
shall force you to prosecute! I shall drag you into court, and you shall
be beaten--beaten--beaten!" Which grim reiteration followed us on our
course.

We drove of course to the little wayside inn from which we had departed
in the morning so unencumbered, in all broad England, either with
enemies or friends. My companion, as the carriage rolled along, seemed
overwhelmed and exhausted. "What a beautiful horrible dream!" he
confusedly wailed. "What a strange awakening! What a long long day! What
a hideous scene! Poor me! Poor woman!" When we had resumed possession of
our two little neighbouring rooms I asked him whether Miss Searle's
note had been the result of anything that had passed between them on
his going to rejoin her. "I found her on the terrace," he said, "walking
restlessly up and down in the moonlight. I was greatly excited--I
hardly know what I said. I asked her, I think, if she knew the story of
Margaret Searle. She seemed frightened and troubled, and she used
just the words her brother had used--'I know nothing.' For the moment,
somehow, I felt as a man drunk. I stood before her and told her, with
great emphasis, how poor Margaret had married a beggarly foreigner--all
in obedience to her heart and in defiance to her family. As I talked the
sheeted moonlight seemed to close about us, so that we stood there in
a dream, in a world quite detached. She grew younger, prettier, more
attractive--I found myself talking all kinds of nonsense. Before I knew
it I had