ake until a late hour, he found himself unable
to sleep. He was conscious of the depth of the disturbance that swayed
him, but though he did his best to conquer it, he made no progress; dawn
found him still under its influence. He decided to go away for a few
days; he had been shut up at East Angels too long, the narrow little
round of Gracias life was making him narrow as well. The evening before,
he had felt a strong wish to see Margaret, to note how she would appear;
but now his one desire was to get away without seeing her, if possible.
Curiosity--if curiosity it had been--had died down; in its place was
something that ached and throbbed, which he did not care to analyze
further.

Lucian had really gone--he had ascertained that; East Angels was
therefore safe for the present, as far as he was concerned. Winthrop
remained very indifferent to Lucian personally, even now; he consigned
his good looks to the place where the good looks of a strikingly
handsome man are generally consigned by those of his less conspicuously
endowed brethren who come in contact with him, and he felt that immense
disgust which men of his nature are apt to feel in such cases, with no
corresponding realization, perhaps, of the effect which has been
observed to be produced sometimes by--item, a pair of long-lashed eyes;
item, a pink young cheek; item, a soft dimpled arm--upon even the most
inflexible of mankind. No, he did not care about Lucian. He said to
himself that if it had not been Lucian, it would have been somebody
else; he made himself say that.

Now, as he sat there at the end of the long pier, with the dense rain
falling all round him, he went over again in his own mind all these
things. Two states of feeling had gradually become more absorbing than
the rest; one of these was a deep dumb anger against Margaret for the
indifference with which she had treated him, was still treating him.
What rank must he hold in her mind, then?--one which could leave her so
untroubled as to his opinion of her. What estimation must she have of
him that made her willing to brave him in this way? She had not written
during his absence, expressing--or disguising--apprehension; making
excuses; she had not even written (a woman's usual trick) to say that
she knew it was not necessary to write, that she was safe with him, and
that she only wrote now to assure him that she felt this. Was he such a
nonentity in every way that she could remain unconcerned as to