ut their hands never
touched, and the silence was unbroken until they had issued into the
open lane.

CHAPTER 6

The lodgings were taken for three weeks, and more than half the time had
now elapsed.

Jessica, who declared herself quite well and strong again, though her
face did not bear out the assertion, was beginning to talk of matters
examinational once more. Notwithstanding protests, she brought forth
from their hiding-place sundry arid little manuals and black-covered
notebooks; her thoughts were divided between algebraic formulae and
Nancy's relations with Lionel Tarrant. Perhaps because no secret was
confided to her, she affected more appetite for the arid little books
than she really felt. Nancy would neither speak of examinations, nor
give ear when they were talked about; she, whether consciously or not,
was making haste to graduate in quite another school.

On the morning after her long walk with Tarrant, she woke before
sunrise, and before seven o'clock had left the house. A high wind and
hurrying clouds made the weather prospects uncertain. She strayed
about the Den, never losing sight for more than a minute or two of the
sea-fronting house where Tarrant lived. But no familiar form approached
her, and she had to return to breakfast unrewarded for early rising.

Through the day she was restless and silent, kept alone as much as
possible, and wore a look which, as the hours went on, darkened from
anxiety to ill-humour. She went to bed much earlier than usual.

At eleven next morning, having lingered behind her friends, she found
Tarrant in conversation with Mrs. Morgan and Jessica on the pier. His
greeting astonished her; it had precisely the gracious formality of a
year ago; a word or two about the weather, and he resumed his talk
with Miss. Morgan--its subject, the educational value of the classics.
Obliged to listen, Nancy suffered an anguish of resentful passion. For
a quarter of an hour she kept silence, then saw the young man take leave
and saunter away with that air which, in satire, she had formerly styled
majestic.

And then passed three whole days, during which Lionel was not seen.

The evening of the fourth, between eight and nine o'clock, found
Nancy at the door of the house which her thoughts had a thousand times
visited. A servant, in reply to inquiry, told her that Mr Tarrant was in
London; he would probably return to-morrow.

She walked idly away--and, at less than a hundred