"Why?" I repeated, more hoarsely yet.

"Because--because I must not neglect mother again. She is waiting."

"Then let me go with you."

"Oh, no! Some day--if we meet--I will introduce you."

"Why not now?"

"Because she is not well."

Even my lately-acquired knowledge of the _Materia Medico_, scarcely
warranted me in offering to cure her. But I did.

She laughed shyly and said, "How, sir; are you a doctor?"

"Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary," I said
lightly, "neither one nor the other, but that curious compound of the
two last--a medical student."

"Then I will not trust you," she answered, smiling.

"Better trust me," I said; and something in my words again made her
look down.

"You will trust me?" I pleaded, and the something in my words grew
plainer.

Still no answer.

"Oh, trust me!"

The hand quivered in mine an instant, the eyes looked up and laughed
once more. "I will trust you," she said--"not to move from this spot
until I am out of sight."

Then with a light "Good-bye" she was gone, and I was left to vaguely
comprehend my loss.

Before long I had seen her a third time and yet once again. I had
learnt her name to be Luttrell--Claire Luttrell; how often did I not
say the words over to myself? I had also confided in Tom and
received his hearty condolence, Tom being in that stage of youth
which despises all of which it knows nothing--love especially, as a
thing contrary to nature's uniformity. So Tom was youthfully
cynical, and therefore by strange inference put on the airs of
superior age; was also sceptical of my description, especially a
certain comparison of her eyes to stars, though a very similar trope
occurred somewhere in the tragedy. Indeed therein Francesca's eyes
were likened to the Pleiads, being apparently (as I pointed out with
some asperity) seven in number, and one of them lost.

I had also seen Mrs. Luttrell, a worn and timid woman, with weak blue
eyes and all the manner of the professional invalid. I say this now,
but in those days she was in my eyes a celestial being mysteriously
clothed in earth's infirmities--as how should the mother of Claire be
anything else? Somehow I won the favour of this faded creature--
chiefly, I suspect, because she liked so well to be left alone.
All day long she would sit contentedly watching the river and waiting
for Claire, yet only anxious that Claire should be happy. All her
heart centred on her child,