urbed silence: But passing Mrs. Noel's
cottage Miltoun said:

"Take my horse on; I want to go in here."....

She was sitting at her piano with her hands idle, looking at a line of
music.... She had been sitting thus for many minutes, but had not yet
taken in the notes.

When Miltoun's shadow blotted the light by which she was seeing so
little, she gave a slight start, and got up. But she neither went
towards him, nor spoke. And he, without a word, came in and stood by the
hearth, looking down at the empty grate. A tortoise-shell cat which had
been watching swallows, disturbed by his entrance, withdrew from the
window beneath a chair.

This silence, in which the question of their future lives was to be
decided, seemed to both interminable; yet, neither could end it.

At last, touching his sleeve, she said: "You're wet!"

Miltoun shivered at that timid sign of possession. And they again stood
in silence broken only by the sound of the cat licking its paws.

But her faculty for dumbness was stronger than his, and--he had to speak
first.

"Forgive me for coming; something must be settled. This--rumour----"

"Oh! that!" she said. "Is there anything I can do to stop the harm to
you?"

It was the turn of Miltoun's lips to curl. "God! no; let them talk!"

Their eyes had come together now, and, once together, seemed unable to
part.

Mrs. Noel said at last:

"Will you ever forgive me?"

"What for--it was my fault."

"No; I should have known you better."

The depth of meaning in those words--the tremendous and subtle admission
they contained of all that she had been ready to do, the despairing
knowledge in them that he was not, and never had been, ready to 'bear it
out even to the edge of doom'--made Miltoun wince away.

"It is not from fear--believe that, anyway."

"I do."

There followed another long, long silence! But though so close that they
were almost touching, they no longer looked at one another. Then Miltoun
said:

"There is only to say good-bye, then."

At those clear words spoken by lips which, though just smiling, failed
so utterly to hide his misery, Mrs. Noel's face became colourless as her
white gown. But her eyes, which had grown immense, seemed from the
sheer lack of all other colour, to have drawn into them the whole of her
vitality; to be pouring forth a proud and mournful reproach.

Shivering, and crushing himself together with his arms, Miltoun walked
towards the window. There wa