All this betokened some malady of the mind, rather than of the body; but what that malady was, Grace dare not even try to guess.  Perhaps it was one of the fits of religious melancholy so common in the West country—­ like her own, in fact:  perhaps it was all “nerves.”  Her mother was growing old, and had a great deal of business to worry her; and so Grace thrust away the horrible suspicion by little self-deceptions.

She went into the shop.  Tom was busy upon his knees behind the counter.  She made her request.

“Ah, Miss Harvey!” and he sprang up.  “It will be a pleasure to serve you once more in one’s life.  I am just going.”

“Going where?”

“To Turkey.  I find this place too pleasant and too poor.  Not work enough, and certainly not pay enough.  So I have got an appointment as surgeon in the Turkish contingent, and shall be off in an hour.”

“To Turkey! to the war?”

“Yes.  It’s a long time since I have seen any fighting.  I am quite out of practice in gunshot wounds.  There is the medicine.  Good-bye!  You will shake hands once, for the sake of our late cholera work together.”

Grace held out her hand mechanically across the counter, and he took it.  But she did not look into his face.  Only she said, half to herself,—­

“Well, better so.  I have no doubt you will be very useful among them.”

“Confound the icicle!” thought Tom.  “I really believe that she wants to get rid of me.”  And he would have withdrawn his hand in a pet:  but she held it still.

Quaint it was; those two strong natures, each loving the other better than anything else on earth, and yet parted by the thinnest pane of ice, which a single look would have melted.  She longing to follow that man over the wide world, slave for him, die for him; he longing for the least excuse for making a fool of himself, and crying, “Take me, as I take you, without a penny, for better, for worse!” If their eyes had but met!  But they did not meet; and the pane of ice kept them asunder as surely as a wall of iron.

Was it that Tom was piqued at her seeming coldness:  or did he expect, before he made any advances, that she should show that she wished at least for his respect, by saying something to clear up the ugly question which lay between them?  Or was he, as I suspect, so ready to melt, and make a fool of himself, that he must needs harden his own heart by help of the devil himself?  And yet there are excuses for him.  It would have been a sore trial to any man’s temper to quit Aberalva in the belief that he left fifteen hundred pounds behind him.  Be that as it may, he said carelessly, after a moment’s pause,—­

“Well, farewell!  And, by the bye, about that little money matter.  The month of which you spoke once was up yesterday.  I suppose I am not worthy yet; so I shall be humble, and wait patiently.  Don’t hurry yourself, I beg of you, on my account.”