“Oh, I don’t mind it,” said the straightforward girl.

“And I have to thank you for your courtesy to me,” he went on, “and only hope that all my punishments may come in the same form.”

“Mrs. Ford, is the judgment satisfied?”

“Satisfactory as far as you went, but then you did not serve out your time.”

“Have consideration, I pray, for the minister of justice,” bowing to Miss Walters.

“She seemed rather to like it,” said Mrs. Ford.

“Indeed I did!” and the young ladies gathered about to congratulate her, and cast admiring glances at her partner.

“Mr. Ridgeley,” said Mrs. Markham, “I was not aware that you were an accomplished waltzer.”

“You forget,” Bart answered mockingly, “that I am travelled; and you know my only aptitude is for the useless.”

“I did not say that.”

“You are too kind.  I sometimes supply words to obvious thoughts.”

“And sometimes to those that have no existence.”

The floor filled again, and the music struck up.  Standing, a moment later, at a window, Julia saw a figure pass out, pause at the roadway, turn and look up.  The full glare of the lamps revealed the face of Bart, from which the light had faded, and its beauty and spirit of expression had departed.  He gazed for an instant up at the brilliant and joyous scene, where a moment before he had been a central and applauded figure, and then, muffling his face in his cloak, he turned away.

He had not intended to go, and sat melancholy through the darkness of the early night; but somehow, a hungry, intense longing came to him to go and look for a moment upon the loveliness of Julia, as she would stand open to the eyes of all, just for one moment, and then to go away.  He felt that he ought not to do it, but he went.  He could not help it.

When he reached the place, three miles away, he was annoyed by being recognized and pointed at, and talked at, on account of his late encounter with Grid.

“He ain’t a powerful-lookin’ chap.”  “I wouldn’t be afeared o’ him.”  “He’s a darned sight harder’n he looks,” etc.

When he escaped into the ball-room, the impulse to go into the immediate presence of Julia was followed, and ended by as sudden a retreat.  He had not known how utterly weak and helpless he was, and felt angry with himself that he could ever wish for the presence of one who had so scorned him.  He was ashamed, also, that the music, the dance, and gay joyance of the scene he had just left, had still such a seductive charm for him, and he recorded a mental resolution to avoid all similar allurements for the future.  Having made this resolution, and strong in his faith of keeping it, he merely turned to take final leave, as he fell under the eyes of Julia, and without seeing her.

The night outside was cold, dark, and thick, with a pitiless snow, that was rapidly filling the track along the highway.  Bart turned, without the remotest touch of self-pity, to face it, with a heart as cold and dark as the night that swallowed him up.  He felt that there was not a heart left behind that would throb with a moment’s pain for him—­that would miss him, or wonder at his departure; and he was sure that he did not care.