‘How thoughtful you always are for me!’

She unconsciously used the very words with which she had thanked him in Hare Court the last time he had given her money.  The tone told him how deeply grateful she was.

‘Well,’ he said in answer, ’as far as that goes, it’s for you yourself, as much as if I didn’t know where it went; and if I’m obliged to sail suddenly I don’t want you to be out of your reckoning.’

’You’re much too good, Rufus.  Do you really mean that you may have to go back at once, to defend yourself?’

’No, not exactly that.  But business is business, and somebody responsible has got to be there, since poor old Bamberger has gone crazy and come abroad to stay—­apparently.’

‘Crazy?’

’Well, he behaves like it, anyway.  I’m beginning to be sorry for that man.  I’m in earnest.  You mayn’t believe it, but I really am.  Kind of unnatural, isn’t it, for me to be sorry for people?’

He looked steadily at Lady Maud for a moment, then smiled faintly, looked away, and began to blow his little tune through his teeth again.

‘You were sorry for little Ida,’ suggested Lady Maud.

’That’s different.  I—­I liked her mother a good deal, and when the child was turned adrift I sort of looked after her.  Anybody’d do that, I expect.’

‘And you’re sorry for me, in a way,’ said Lady Maud.

’You’re different, too.  You’re my friend.  I suppose you’re about the only one I’ve got, too.  We can’t complain of being crowded out of doors by our friends, either of us, can we?  Besides, I shouldn’t put it in that way, or call it being sorry, exactly.  It’s another kind of feeling I have.  I’d like to undo your life and make it over again for you, the right way, so that you’d be happy.  I can do a great deal, but all the cursed nickel in the world won’t bring back the—­’ he checked himself suddenly, shutting his hard lips with an audible clack, and looking down.  ‘I beg your pardon, my dear,’ he said in a low voice, a moment later.

For he had been very near to speaking of the dead, and he felt instinctively that the rough speech, however kindly meant, would have pained her, and perhaps had already hurt her a little.  But as she looked down, too, her hand gently touched the sleeve of his coat to tell him that there was nothing to forgive.

‘He knows,’ she said, more softly than sadly.  ’Where he is, they know about us—­when we try to do right.’

‘And you haven’t only tried,’ Van Torp answered quietly, ’you’ve done it.’

‘Have I?’ It sounded as if she asked the question of herself, or of some one to whom she appealed in her heart.  ‘I often wonder,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘You needn’t worry,’ said her companion, more cheerily than he had yet spoken.  ’Do you want to know why I think you needn’t fuss about your conscience and your soul, and things?’

He smiled now, and so did she, but more at the words he used than at the question itself.