not come with
him. He came the next morning long before Clementina expected visitors,
and he was walking nervously up and down the room when she appeared. As
if he could not speak, he held toward her without speaking a telegram in
English, dated that day in Rome:

"Deny report of my death. Have written.

"Belsky."

She looked up at Gregory from the paper, when she had read it, with
joyful eyes. "Oh, I am so glad for you! I am so glad he is alive."

He took the dispatch from her hand. "I brought it to you as soon as it
came."

"Yes, yes! Of cou'se!"

"I must go now and do what he says--I don't know how yet." He stopped,
and then went on from a different impulse. "Clementina, it isn't a
question now of that wretch's life and death, and I wish I need
never speak of him again. But what he told you was true." He looked
steadfastly at her, and she realized how handsome he was, and how
well dressed. His thick red hair seemed to have grown darker above his
forehead; his moustache was heavier, and it curved in at the corners of
his mouth; he bore himself with a sort of self-disdain that enhanced his
splendor. "I have never changed toward you; I don't say it to make favor
with you; I don't expect to do that now; but it is true. That night,
there at Middlemount, I tried to take back what I said, because I
believed that I ought."

"Oh, yes, I knew that," said Clementina, in the pause he made.

"We were both too young; I had no prospect in life; I saw, the instant
after I had spoken, that I had no right to let you promise anything.
I tried to forget you; I couldn't. I tried to make you forget me." He
faltered, and she did not speak, but her head drooped a little. "I won't
ask how far I succeeded. I always hoped that the time would come when
I could speak to you again. When I heard from Fane that you were at
Woodlake, I wished to come out and see you, but I hadn't the courage,
I hadn't the right. I've had to come to you without either, now. Did he
speak to you about me?"

"I thought he was beginning to, once; but he neva did."

"It didn't matter; it could only have made bad worse. It can't help me
to say that somehow I was wishing and trying to do what was right; but I
was."

"Oh, I know that, Mr. Gregory," said Clementina, generously.

"Then you didn't doubt me, in spite of all?"

"I thought you would know what to do. No, I didn't doubt you, exactly."

"I didn't deserve your trust!" he cried.