er was not--but no matter. I reasoned
myself out of this over and over again. I argued that I was not well,
was not fully recovered from my late attack of fever--in short, that I
was hipped, and would certainly take a more cheerful view of things as
my strength came back. I really had been rather bad, you know--and was
low and easily depressed. But what might have opened my eyes to the
truth was that all depression vanished, and all inertia ceased, directly
_you_ appeared,--and _that_ was after I had ceased to hear your gay
little laugh and merry voice. For though you soon grew grave as myself,
my heart would jump when you came into the room, or when I came upon you
in some distant corner, not knowing you were there."

"Paul, Paul, my heart jumped too."

He drew her closer--ah, she was very close now. "I scarcely ever spoke
to you, do you remember? We avoided each other; and I cannot even now
imagine how I came to know you so well,"--and so on, and so on....

Presently Leo had a question to ask. Where had he been during those
three blank days when no communications from Boldero Abbey reached him?
He had disposed of them in a fashion that satisfied others, but not her.

"No, you were too clear-sighted. I knew that," said he. "But what could
I do? I could not tell the truth, which was that I never went near the
place whose address I gave Maud! My one desire was to be out of range of
her letters; for Leonore--I had--I cannot tell how, a sort of dreadful
certainty that she would recall me. For those three days I wandered
about,--I went down to a wild, little, sea place, and fought the demon
within. Then because I simply felt weaker, I fancied soul as well as
body brought into subjection. You all told me I looked bad when I
returned--now you know why."

But though they thus skirted round and round one dread remembrance which
was--how could it help being?--in both their minds, each shrank from
approaching a subject avoided by the other; until at length Leonore,
tremulous but resolute, realised that it was for her, not him, to speak.

"Paul, dear Paul, I don't want to leave _anything_ unsaid. Paul, on that
worst day of all," she hesitated, and his hand pressed the little hand
within it. "Dear Paul," she whispered, "I did not know what I was doing;
indeed, indeed I did not. Something in my head seemed to have snapped,
and I felt so strange--I never felt like it before. And it was not only
about you that I was so unutterabl