xpression of your mind.'

'But it will be when you have left me;--and was when you were with me at
the sea-side. And it was so I felt when I got your first letter in San
Francisco. Why should you kneel there? You do not love me. A man
should kneel to a woman for love, not for pardon.' But though she
spoke thus, she put her hand upon his forehead, and pushed back his
hair, and looked into his face. 'I wonder whether that other woman
loves you. I do not want an answer, Paul. I suppose you had better
go.' She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. 'Tell me one
thing. When you spoke of--compensation, did you mean--money?'

'No; indeed no.'

'I hope not,--I hope not that. Well, there;--go. You shall be troubled
no more with Winifred Hurtle.' She took the sheet of paper which
contained the threat of the horsewhip and tore it into scraps.

'And am I to keep the other?' he asked.

'No. For what purpose would you have it? To prove my weakness? That
also shall be destroyed.' But she took it and restored it to her
pocket-book.

'Good-bye, my friend,' he said.

'Nay! This parting will not bear a farewell. Go, and let there be no
other word spoken.' And so he went.

As soon as the front door was closed behind him she rang the bell and
begged Ruby to ask Mrs Pipkin to come to her. 'Mrs Pipkin,' she said,
as soon as the woman had entered the room; 'everything is over between
me and Mr Montague.' She was standing upright in the middle of the
room, and as she spoke there was a smile on her face.

'Lord 'a mercy,' said Mrs Pipkin, holding up both her hands.

'As I have told you that I was to be married to him, I think it right
now to tell you that I'm not going to be married to him.'

'And why not?--and he such a nice young man,--and quiet too.'

'As to the why not, I don't know that I am prepared to speak about
that. But it is so. I was engaged to him.'

'I'm well sure of that, Mrs Hurtle.'

'And now I'm no longer engaged to him. That's all.'

'Dearie me! and you going down to Lowestoft with him, and all.' Mrs
Pipkin could not bear to think that she should hear no more of such an
interesting story.

'We did go down to Lowestoft together, and we both came back not
together. And there's an end of it.'

'I'm sure it's not your fault, Mrs Hurtle. When a marriage is to be,
and doesn't come off, it never is the lady's fault.'

'There's an end of it, Mrs Pipkin. If you please, we won't say
anything more about it.'