deemed disparaging.
And yet Lettice felt that she was watched, and that there was some
mysterious anxiety in Dalton's mind.

Having no companions (for Clara was too busy with her house and her
children to be considered a companion for the day-time), Lettice
sometimes went for solitary expeditions to various "sights" of London,
and, as usual in such expeditions, had never once met anybody she knew.
She had gone rather early one summer morning to Westminster Abbey, and
was walking slowly through the dim cloistered shades, enjoying the
coolness and the quietness, when she came full upon Alan Walcott, who
seemed to be doing likewise.

They both started: indeed, they both changed color. For the first time
they met outside a drawing-room; and the change in their environment
seemed to warrant some change in their relation to one another. After
the first greeting, and a short significant pause--for what can be more
significant than silence between two people who have reached that stage
of sensitiveness to each other's moods when every word or movement seems
like self-revelation?--Alan spoke.

"You love this place--as I do; I know you love it."

"I have never been here before," said Lettice, letting her eyes stray
dreamily over the grey stones at her feet.

"No, or I should have seen you. I am often here. And I see you so
seldom----"

"So seldom?" said Lettice in some natural surprise. "Why, I thought we
met rather often?"

"Under the world's eye," said Alan, but in so low a voice that she was
not sure whether he meant her to hear or not. However, they both smiled;
and he went on rather hurriedly, "It is the place of all others where I
should expect to meet you. We think so much alike----"

"Do we?" said Lettice doubtfully. "But we differ very much."

"Not in essentials. Don't say that you think so," he said, in a tone
that was almost passionately earnest? "I can't tell you how much it is
to me to feel that I have a friend who understands--who sympathizes--who
_would_ sympathize, I am sure, if she knew all----"

He broke off suddenly, and the emotion in his voice so far touched
Lettice that she remained silent, with drooping head and lowered eyes.

"Yes," he went on, "you owe me your sympathy now. You have given me so
much that you must give me more. I have a right to it."

"Mr. Walcott!" said Lettice, raising her head quickly, "you can have no
_right_----"

"No right to sympathy from a friend? Well, perhaps not