do. It flatters you, and you like flattery. But I've been
too obliging. I feel myself again, and there's no more flattery for
you--till you come back. I don't ask you when that will be. I ask you
nothing at all. I am independent of you.'

Tarrant grew uneasy. He feared that this mood of jest would change only
too suddenly, and her collapse into feminine feebleness be the more
complete.

'Be as independent as you like,' he said; 'only keep your love for me.'

'Oh, indeed! It's your experience, is it, that the two things can go
together? That's the difference between man and woman, I suppose. I
shall love you just as little as possible--and how little that will be,
perhaps I had better not tell you.'

Still he stood gazing at her.

'You look very beautiful to-day.'

'I know. I saw it for myself before I left home. But we won't talk about
that. When do you go?'

'My goods will be warehoused to-morrow, and the next day I go to
Liverpool.'

'I'm glad it's so soon. We shan't need to see each other again. Smoke
your pipe. I'm going to make a cup of tea.'

'Kiss me first. You forgot when you came in.'

'You get no kiss by ordering it. Beg for it prettily, and we'll see.'

'What does it all mean, Nancy? How can you have altered like this?'

'You prefer me as I was last time?'

'Not I, indeed. You make me feel that it will be very hard to leave you.
I shall carry away a picture of you quite different from the dreary face
that I had got to be afraid of.'

Nancy laughed, and of a sudden held out her hands to him.

'Haven't I thought of that? These were the very words I hoped to hear
from you. Now beg for a kiss, and you shall have one.'

Never, perhaps, had they spent together so harmonious an evening.
Nancy's tenderness took at length a graver turn, but she remained
herself, face and speech untroubled by morbid influence.

'I won't see you again,' she said, 'because I mightn't be able to behave
as I can to-day. To-day I am myself; for a long time I have been living
I don't know how.'

Tarrant murmured something about her state of health.

'Yes, I know all about that. A strange thought came to me last night.
When my father was alive I fretted because I couldn't be independent; I
wanted to be quite free, to live as I chose; I looked forward to it as
the one thing desirable. Now, I look back on that as a time of liberty.
I am in bondage, now--threefold bondage.'

'How threefold?'

'To you, because I love y