d's jokes; but she
humoured this one a little absently. "Oh yes, you do bully me." And it
was thus arranged between them, with no discussion at all, that they
would resume their journey in the morning. The younger tourist's
interest in the detail of the matter--in spite of a declaration from
the elder that she would consent to be dragged anywhere--appeared
almost immediately afterwards quite to lose itself; she promised,
however, to think till supper of where, with the world all before them,
they might go--supper having been ordered for such time as permitted of
lighted candles. It had been agreed between them that lighted candles
at wayside inns, in strange countries, amid mountain scenery, gave the
evening meal a peculiar poetry--such being the mild adventures, the
refinements of impression, that they, as they would have said, went in
for. It was now as if, before this repast, Milly had designed to "lie
down"; but at the end of three minutes more she was not lying down, she
was saying instead, abruptly, with a transition that was like a jump of
four thousand miles: "What was it that, in New York, on the ninth, when
you saw him alone, Dr. Finch said to you?"

It was not till later that Mrs. Stringham fully knew why the question
had startled her still more than its suddenness explained; though the
effect of it even at the moment was almost to frighten her into a false
answer. She had to think, to remember the occasion, the "ninth," in New
York, the time she had seen Dr. Finch alone, and to recall what he had
then said to her; and when everything had come back it was quite, at
first, for a moment, as if he had said something that immensely
mattered. He hadn't, however, in fact; it was only as if he might
perhaps after all have been going to. It was on the sixth--within ten
days of their sailing--that she had hurried from Boston under the
alarm, a small but a sufficient shock, of hearing that Mildred had
suddenly been taken ill, had had, from some obscure cause, such an
upset as threatened to stay their journey. The bearing of the accident
had happily soon announced itself as slight, and there had been, in the
event, but a few hours of anxiety; the journey had been pronounced
again not only possible, but, as representing "change," highly
advisable; and if the zealous guest had had five minutes by herself
with the doctor, that was, clearly, no more at his instance than at her
own. Almost nothing had passed between them but