His arms tightened about her.  “Dear,” he said, “I knew it was nothing.  I knew.  I knew.”

She spoke in sobbing sentences.  “It was so simple.  Mr. Baynes ... something in his manner ...  I knew he might be silly ...  Only I did so want to help you.”  She paused.  Just for one instant she saw one untenable indiscretion as it were in a lightning flash.  A chance meeting it was, a “silly” thing or so said, a panic, retreat.  She would have told it—­had she known how.  But she could not do it.  She hesitated.  She abolished it—­untold.  She went on:  “And then, I thought he had sent the roses and I was frightened ...  I was frightened.”

“Dear one,” said Lewisham.  “Dear one!  I have been cruel to you.  I have been unjust.  I understand.  I do understand.  Forgive me.  Dearest—­forgive me.”

“I did so want to do something for you.  It was all I could do—­that little money.  And then you were angry.  I thought you didn’t love me any more because I did not understand your work....  And that Miss Heydinger—­Oh! it was hard.”

“Dear one,” said Lewisham, “I do not care your little finger for Miss Heydinger.”

“I know how I hamper you.  But if you will help me.  Oh!  I would work, I would study.  I would do all I could to understand.”

“Dear,” whispered Lewisham. “Dear”

“And to have her—­”

“Dear,” he vowed, “I have been a brute.  I will end all that.  I will end all that.”

He took her suddenly into his arms and kissed her.

“Oh, I know I’m stupid,” she said.

“You’re not.  It’s I have been stupid.  I have been unkind, unreasonable.  All to-day—...  I’ve been thinking about it.  Dear!  I don’t care for anything—­It’s you.  If I have you nothing else matters ...  Only I get hurried and cross.  It’s the work and being poor.  Dear one, we must hold to each other.  All to-day—­It’s been dreadful....”

He stopped.  They sat clinging to one another.

“I do love you,” she said presently with her arms about him.  “Oh!  I do—­do—­love you.”

He drew her closer to him.

He kissed her neck.  She pressed him to her.

Their lips met.

The expiring candle streamed up into a tall flame, flickered, and was suddenly extinguished.  The air was heavy with the scent of roses.

CHAPTER XXX.

A WITHDRAWAL.

On Tuesday Lewisham returned from Vigours’ at five—­at half-past six he would go on to his science class at Walham Green—­and discovered Mrs. Chaffery and Ethel in tears.  He was fagged and rather anxious for some tea, but the news they had for him drove tea out of his head altogether.

“He’s gone,” said Ethel.

“Who’s gone?  What!  Not Chaffery?”

Mrs. Chaffery, with a keen eye to Lewisham’s behaviour, nodded tearfully over an experienced handkerchief.