d you know?"

"Yes, I heard. Is it--is it a great trouble to you?"

"Yes." She shook again.

"Surely," he began, and hesitated, and grew bold. "Surely it needn't be?
She wasn't, was she, such a particularly amiable person?"

"She couldn't help it. She was so unhappy."

His voice softened. "You were very fond of her?"

"Yes. How did you know she'd gone?"

It was too dark in there for him to see the fear in her eyes as she
turned them to him.

"Oh," he said, "we heard she'd left. I suppose she had to go."

"Yes," said Mrs. Tailleur, "she had to go."

"Well, I shouldn't distress myself any more about it. Tell me, have you
been walking about in the rain ever since she left?"

"I--I think so."

"And my little sister was looking for you everywhere. She wanted you to
dine with us. We thought you would, perhaps, as you were free."

"That was very good of you."

"We couldn't find you anywhere in the hotel. Then I came out here."

"What made you come?"

"I came to look for you."

"To look for me?"

"Yes. You don't mind, do you?"

"How did you know I should be here?"

"I didn't. It was the last place I tried. Do you know it's past nine
o'clock? You must come in now."

"I--can't."

"Oh yes," he said, "you can. You're coming back with me."

He talked as he would to a frightened child, to one of his own children.

"I'm afraid to go back."

"Why?"

"Because of Bunny. She told me people were saying dreadful things about
me. That's why she left. She couldn't bear it."

Lucy ground his teeth. "_She_ couldn't bear it? That shows what she was,
doesn't it? But you--you don't mind what people say?"

"No," she said, "I don't mind."

"Well----"

"Yes!" she cried passionately. "I do mind. I've always minded. It's just
the one thing I can't get over."

"It's the one thing," said Lucy, "we have to learn to get over. When
you've lived to be as old as I am, you'll see how very little it matters
what people say of us. Especially when we know what other people think."

"Other people?"

"Friends," he said, "the people who really care."

"Ah, if we only could know what they think. That's the most horrible
thing of all--what they think."

"Is that why you don't want to go back?"

Lucy's voice was unsteady and very low.

"Yes," she whispered.

There was a brief silence.

"But if you go back with _me_," he said, "it will be all right, won't
it?"

The look in her eyes almost reached him through the dar