ng truth. I do not say but that I would obliterate it if
I could; but it is not to be obliterated; the past will not be made
more pleasant to me by any pretence of present indignation. I should
have thought that it would have been the same with you."

"There has been no glory," she said, "though I quite acknowledge the
meanness."

"There has been at any rate some love."

"Misplaced. You had better let me pass on. I have, as you say,
steeled myself. I will not condescend to any tenderness. In my
brother's presence and my sister's I will wish you good-bye and
express a hope that you may be successful in your enterprises. Here,
by the brook-side, out upon the mountain-path, where there is no one
to hear us but our two selves, I will bid you no farewell softer than
that already spoken. Go and do as you propose. You have my leave.
When it shall have been done there shall never be a word spoken by me
against it. But, when you ask me whether you are right, I will only
say that I think you to be wrong. It may be that you owe nothing to
me; but you owe something to her, and something also to yourself.
Now, Mr. Houston, I shall be glad to pass on."

He shrugged his shoulders and then stepped out of the path, thinking
as he did so how ignorant he had been, after all that had passed, of
much of the character of Imogene Docimer. It could not be, he had
thought, but that she would melt into softness at last. "I will not
condescend to any tenderness," she had said, and it seemed that she
would be as good as her word. He then walked down before her in
silence, and in silence they reached the inn.

"Mr. Houston," said Mrs. Docimer, before they sat down to dinner
together, "I thought it was understood that you and Imogene should
not go out alone together again."

"I have taken my place to Innspruck by the diligence this evening,"
he answered.

"Perhaps it will be better so, though both Mudbury and I will be
sorry to lose your company."

"Yes, Mrs. Docimer, I have taken my place. Your sister seemed to
think that there would be great danger if I waited till to-morrow
morning when I could have got a pleasant lift in a return carriage. I
hate travelling at night and I hate diligences. I was quite prepared
to post all the way, though it would have ruined me,--only for this
accursed diligence."

"I am sorry you should be inconvenienced."

"It does not signify. What a man without a wife may suffer in that
way never does signify. I