Well, it is very
touching. There never was anybody quite so good, do you think there
was, Merat?"

"That is the reason why we all love her; and you do, too, Sir Owen,
though you pretend to hate goodness and to despise--"

"No, Merat, no. Tell mademoiselle, if she wakes, that I am coming
back to see her this evening late--the later the better, I suppose,
for she is not likely to fall asleep again once she awakes."

Merat mentioned between nine and ten o'clock, and, to distract his
thoughts, Owen went to the theatre that evening, and was glad to
leave it at ten, before the play was over.

"Is she awake?"

"She has been awake some time. I think you will be able to have a
little talk with her." And Owen stole into the room with so little
noise that Evelyn did not hear him, and all the room was seen and
understood before she turned: the crucifix above the bedstead, the
pious prints, engravings which they had bought in Italy--Botticelli
and Filippo Lippi. She lay in a narrow iron bed, and all the form
that he knew so well covered in a plain nightgown such as he had
never seen before, but in keeping, he thought, with the rest of the
room, and in conformity--such was his impression, there was no time
for thinking--with her present opinions. The smallness of the chest
of drawers surprised him. Where did she keep her clothes? It might
be doubted if she possessed more than two or three gowns. Where were
they hanging? The few chairs and the dressing-table, on which he
caught sight of some ivory brushes he had given her, seemed the only
furniture in the room.

"Evelyn!"

"Oh, it is you, Owen. So you have come to see me. You are always
kind."

"My dear Evelyn, there never can be any question of kindness between
you and me. You will always be Evelyn, and I am only thinking now of
how glad I am to have found you again."

"Found me again!" And her thoughts seemed to float away, her mind not
being strong enough yet to think connectedly. "How did you hear
about me?" Before he could answer she said, "I suppose Ulick--" And
then, with an effort to remember, she added, "Yes, Merat told me he
had come here," and the effort seemed to fatigue her.

"Perhaps it would be better if you didn't talk."

"Oh, no," she said, taking his hand, detaining it for a moment and
then losing it; "tell me."

And he told her, speaking very gently so that his voice might not
tire her, that Ulick had called at Berkeley Square.

"He told me you we