core of this situation."

A pause fell between the two gentlemen. They had smoothed over the
extreme harshness of their separation and there was very little more to
be said.

"Well," said Sir Richmond in conclusion, "I am very sorry indeed,
Martineau, that we have to part like this."

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

COMPANIONSHIP

Section 1

"Well," said Dr. Martineau, extending his hand to Sir Richmond on the
Salisbury station platform, "I leave you to it."

His round face betrayed little or no vestiges of his overnight
irritation.

"Ought you to leave me to it?" smiled Sir Richmond.

"I shall be interested to learn what happens."

"But if you won't stay to see!"

"Now Sir, please," said the guard respectfully but firmly, and Dr.
Martineau got in.

Sir Richmond walked thoughtfully down the platform towards the exit.

"What else could I do?" he asked aloud to nobody in particular.

For a little while he thought confusedly of the collapse of his
expedition into the secret places of his own heart with Dr. Martineau,
and then his prepossession with Miss Grammont resumed possession of his
mind. Dr. Martineau was forgotten.

Section 2

For the better part of forty hours, Sir Richmond had either been talking
to Miss Grammont, or carrying on imaginary conversations with her in her
absence, or sleeping and dreaming dreams in which she never failed
to play a part, even if at times it was an altogether amazing and
incongruous part. And as they were both very frank and expressive
people, they already knew a very great deal about each other.

For an American Miss Grammont was by no means autobiographical. She
gave no sketches of her idiosyncrasies, and she repeated no remembered
comments and prophets of her contemporaries about herself. She either
concealed or she had lost any great interest in her own personality. But
she was interested in and curious about the people she had met in life,
and her talk of them reflected a considerable amount of light upon her
own upbringing and experiences. And her liking for Sir Richmond was
pleasingly manifest. She liked his turn of thought, she watched him
with a faint smile on her lips as he spoke, and she spread her opinions
before him carefully in that soft voice of hers like a shy child showing
its treasures to some suddenly trusted and favoured visitor.

Their ways of thought harmonized. They talked at first chiefly about the
history of the world and the extraordinary si