; for from the way Miss Roots had referred to Lucia Harden and to
Court House, it was evident that she knew nothing of what had happened
to them, and he did not feel equal to telling her. Lucia's pain was so
great a part of his pain that as yet he could not touch it. But though
he never openly approached the subject of Harmouth, he was for ever
skirting it, keeping it in sight.

He came very near to it one evening, when, finding himself alone with
Miss Roots in the back drawing-room, he asked her how long it was
since she had been in Devonshire. It seemed that it was no longer ago
than last year. Only last year? It was still warm then, the link
between her and the woman whom he loved. He found himself looking at
Miss Roots, scanning the lines of her plain face as if it held for him
some new and wonderful significance. For him that faced flamed
transfigured as in the moment when she had first spoken of Lucia. The
thin lips which had seemed to him so utterly unattractive had touched
Lucia's, and were baptized into her freshness and her charm; her eyes
had looked into Lucia's and carried something of their light. In her
presence he drifted into a sort of mysticism peculiar to lovers,
seeing the hand of a holy destiny in the chance that had seated him
beside her. Though her shrewdness might divine his secret he felt that
with her it would be safe.

As for his other companions of the dinner-table he was obliged to
admit that they displayed an admirable delicacy. After Mrs. Downey's
revelation not one of them had asked him what he had been doing those
four weeks. Spinks had a theory, which he kept to himself. Old Rickets
had been having a high old time. He had eloped with a barmaid or an
opera girl. For those four weeks, he had no doubt, Rickets had been
gloriously, ruinously, on the loose. Mrs. Downey's speculations had
taken the same turn. Mr. Rickman's extraordinary request that all his
clean linen should be forwarded to him at once had set her mind
working; it suggested a young man living in luxury beyond his means.
Mrs. Downey's fancy kindled and blushed by turns as it followed him
into a glorious or disreputable unknown. Whatever the adventures of
those four weeks she felt that they were responsible for his awful
state of impecuniosity. And yet she desired to keep him. "There is
something about him," said Mrs. Downey to Miss Roots, and paused
searching for the illuminating word; "something that goes to your
heart with