there had been nothing
said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did not send one.
Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your position to be so much
wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have mistaken your meaning. And
when I heard of the other lady--a woman of whose family even you might be
proud--I thought how foolish I had been, and said nothing.'

'Then I suppose it was destiny--accident--I don't know what, that
separated us, dear Lucy. Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have made
my wife--and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!'

'O, Mr. Barnet,' she said, almost in tears, 'don't revive the subject to
me; I am the wrong one to console you--think, sir,--you should not be
here--it would be so bad for me if it were known!'

'It would--it would, indeed,' he said hastily. 'I am not right in doing
this, and I won't do it again.'

'It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the course
you did not adopt must have been the best,' she continued, with gentle
solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room. 'And you don't
know that I should have accepted you, even if you had asked me to be your
wife.' At this his eye met hers, and she dropped her gaze. She knew
that her voice belied her. There was a silence till she looked up to
add, in a voice of soothing playfulness, 'My family was so much poorer
than yours, even before I lost my dear father, that--perhaps your
companions would have made it unpleasant for us on account of my
deficiencies.'

'Your disposition would soon have won them round,' said Barnet.

She archly expostulated: 'Now, never mind my disposition; try to make it
up with your wife! Those are my commands to you. And now you are to
leave me at once.'

'I will. I must make the best of it all, I suppose,' he replied, more
cheerfully than he had as yet spoken. 'But I shall never again meet with
such a dear girl as you!' And he suddenly opened the door, and left her
alone. When his glance again fell on the lamps that were sparsely ranged
along the dreary level road, his eyes were in a state which showed straw-
like motes of light radiating from each flame into the surrounding air.

On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an umbrella,
walking parallel with himself. Presently this man left the footway, and
gradually converged on Barnet's course. The latter then saw that it was
Charlson, a surgeon of the town, who owed hi