e simple
truth? Why should she have raised that question? Why should she have
taken for granted that any personal interest should have led him to
do this thing? And in wondering she was ashamed. He saw her confusion,
and attributed it to another cause.

"I'm only asking you to keep the two things distinct, as I do--as I
must do," he said gently.

"I'll think about it, and let you know to-morrow."

"But I'm going to-night."

"Oh no, I can't let you do that. You must stay over the night. Your
room is ready for you."

He protested; she insisted; and in the end she had her way, as he
meant to have his way to-morrow.

He stayed, and all that evening they were very kind to him. Kitty
talked gaily throughout dinner; and afterwards Lucia played to him
while he rested, propped up with great cushions (she had insisted on
the cushions) in her chair. Kitty, his hostess, drew back, and seemed
to leave these things to Lucia as her right. He knew it was Lucia, and
not Kitty, who ran up to his room to see that all was comfortable and
that his fire burnt well. In everything she said and did there was a
peculiar gentleness and care. It was on the same lines as Kitty's
compassion, only more poignant and intense. It was, he thought, as if
she knew that it was for the last time, that of all these pleasant
things to-morrow would see the end. Was it kind of her to let him know
what her tenderness could be when to-morrow must end it all? For he
had no notion of the fear evoked by his appearance, the fear that was
in both their hearts. He did not know why they looked at him with
those kind glances, nor why Lucia told him that Robert was close at
hand if he should want anything in the night. He slept in the room
that had once been Lucia's, the room above the library, looking to the
western hills. He did not know that they had given it him because it
was a good room to be ill and to get well in.

Lucia and Kitty sat up late that night over the fire, and they talked
of him.

Kitty began it. "_Do_ you remember," said she, "the things we used to
say about him?"

"Oh don't, Kitty; I do."

"You needn't mind; it was only I who said them."

"Yes, you said them; but I thought them."

Then she told Kitty what had brought him there and the story that he
had told her. "And, Kitty, all the time I knew he lied."

"Probably. You must take it, Lucy, all the same."

"How can I take it, when I know it comes out of his own poor little
waistcoat