he drawing-room.

"I will come directly. Let me just go and ask Leonie to sit up."

Warkworth went into the drawing-room. Julie opened the dining-room door.
Madame Bornier was engaged in washing and putting away the china and
glass which had been used for Julie's modest refreshments.

"Leonie, you won't go to bed? Major Warkworth is here."

Madame Bornier did not raise her head.

"How long will he be?"

"Perhaps half an hour."

"It is already past midnight."

"Leonie, he goes to-morrow."

"Tres bien. Mais--sais-tu, ma chere, ce n'est pas convenable, ce que tu
fais la!"

And the older woman, straightening herself, looked her foster-sister
full in the face. A kind of watch-dog anxiety, a sulky, protesting
affection breathed from her rugged features.

Julie went up to her, not angrily, but rather with a pleading humility.

The two women held a rapid colloquy in low tones--Madame Bornier
remonstrating, Julie softly getting her way.

Then Madame Bornier returned to her work, and Julie went to the
drawing-room.

Warkworth sprang up as she entered. Both paused and wavered. Then he
went up to her, and roughly, irresistibly, drew her into his arms. She
held back a moment, but finally yielded, and clasping her hands round
his neck she buried her face on his breast.

They stood so for some minutes, absolutely silent, save for her hurried
breathing, his head bowed upon hers.

"Julie, how can we say good-bye?" he whispered, at last.

She disengaged herself, and, seeing his face, she tried for composure.

"Come and sit down."

She led him to the window, which he had thrown open as he entered the
room, and they sat beside it, hand in hand. A mild April night shone
outside. Gusts of moist air floated in upon them. There were dim lights
and shadows in the garden and on the shuttered facade of the
great house.

"Is it forever?" said Julie, in a low, stifled voice.
"Good-bye--forever?"

She felt his hand tremble, but she did not look at him. She seemed to
be reciting words long since spoken in the mind.

"You will be away--perhaps a year? Then you go back to India, and
then--"

She paused.

Warkworth was physically conscious, as it were, of a letter he carried
in his coat-pocket--a letter from Lady Blanche Moffatt which had reached
him that morning, the letter of a _grande dame_, reduced to undignified
remonstrance by sheer maternal terror--terror for the health and life of
a child as fragile and ethereal