with her myself to the early train; and I saw it leave the
station." And Olive kept her eyes unaverted, for the satisfaction of
seeing how he took it.

It must be confessed that he took it rather ill. He had decided it was
best he should retire, but Verena's retiring was another matter. "And
where is she gone?" he asked, with a frown.

"I don't think I am obliged to tell you."

"Of course not! Excuse my asking. It is much better that I should find
it out for myself, because if I owed the information to you I should
perhaps feel a certain delicacy as regards profiting by it."

"Gracious heaven!" cried Miss Chancellor, at the idea of Ransom's
delicacy. Then she added more deliberately: "You will not find out for
yourself."

"You think not?"

"I am sure of it!" And her enjoyment of the situation becoming acute,
there broke from her lips a shrill, unfamiliar, troubled sound, which
performed the office of a laugh, a laugh of triumph, but which, at a
distance, might have passed almost as well for a wail of despair. It
rang in Ransom's ears as he quickly turned away.

XL

It was Mrs. Luna who received him, as she had received him on the
occasion of his first visit to Charles Street; by which I do not mean
quite in the same way. She had known very little about him then, but she
knew too much for her happiness to-day, and she had with him now a
little invidious, contemptuous manner, as if everything he should say or
do could be a proof only of abominable duplicity and perversity. She had
a theory that he had treated her shamefully; and he knew it--I do not
mean the fact, but the theory: which led him to reflect that her
resentments were as shallow as her opinions, inasmuch as if she really
believed in her grievance, or if it had had any dignity, she would not
have consented to see him. He had not presented himself at Miss
Chancellor's door without a very good reason, and having done so he
could not turn away so long as there was any one in the house of whom he
might have speech. He had sent up his name to Mrs. Luna, after being
told that she was staying there, on the mere chance that she would see
him; for he thought a refusal a very possible sequel to the letters she
had written him during the past four or five months--letters he had
scarcely read, full of allusions of the most cutting sort to proceedings
of his, in the past, of which he had no recollection whatever. They
bored him, for he had quite other matt