to you?"

"Not at all: the money for the journey was more than enough."

Molly was left alone, and she gave orders that no one, without
exception, was to be admitted. Then she walked up and down the room in a
condition of semi-conscious pain.

At first it seemed as if Dr. Larrone's intelligence had not reached her
brain at all. The only clear thing in her mind at that moment was the
thought that Edmund was going away at once with Lady Rose Bright. The
disappointment was in proportion to the wild hopes of the last week,
only Molly had not quite owned to herself how intensely she had looked
forward to his next coming. It was true he might still come and see her
before he started, but if he came it could not be what she had meant it
to be. If he had meant what Molly dreamed of, could he have gone off
suddenly on this yachting expedition? She knew the yachting was not
thought of when she had seen him, for he told her then that he meant to
stay in London for some weeks. But as her thoughts grew clearer, what
was most horrible to Molly was a gradual dawning of common daylight into
the romance she had been living in for months. For, looking back now,
she could not feel sure that any of her views of Edmund's feelings
towards herself had been true. It was a tearing at her heart's most
precious feelings to be forced to common sense, to see the past in the
matter-of-fact way in which it might appear to other people. And yet,
Adela Delaport Green had expected him to propose even in the season, but
then, what might not the Adela Delaport Greens of life suspect and
expect without the slightest foundation? Could Molly herself say firmly
and without delusion that Edmund had treated her badly? How she wished
she could! She would rather think that he had been charmed away by
hostile influence, or even that he had deliberately played with her than
feel it all to have been her own vain fancy! It was agony to her to feel
that she had without any excuse, set up an idol in her sacred places,
and woven about him all the dreams and loves of her youth. It must be
remembered not only that it was the first time that Molly had loved in
the ordinary sense of the word, but it was absolutely the first time
that she had ever felt any deep affection for any human being whatever.
And now a great sense of abandonment was on her; the old feeling of
isolation, of being cast out, that she had had all her life, was
frightfully strong. Edmund had left her; h