Would he get his freedom, she wondered, and would he use it?  Sometimes when she was with him, she would look up to see whether she could read the answer in his face; but she never saw any variation of expression there, nothing to give her even a suggestion.  But this she noticed:  that there was a marked variation in his manner, and that when he had been rough in bearing, or bitter in speech, he made silent amends at the earliest opportunity by being less rough and less bitter.  She felt this was no small concession on the part of the Disagreeable Man.

He was particularly disagreeable on the day when the Dutchman was buried, and so the following day when Bernardine met him in the little English library, she was not surprised to find him almost kindly.

He had chosen the book which she wanted, but he gave it up to her at once without any grumbling, though Bernardine expected him to change his mind before they left the library.

“Well,” he said, as they walked along together, “and have you recovered from the death of the Dutchman?”

“Have you recovered, rather let me ask?” she said.  “You were in a horrid mood last night.”

“I was feeling wretchedly ill,” he said quietly.

That was the first time he had ever alluded to his own health.

“Not that there is any need to make an excuse,” he continued, “for I do not recognise that there is any necessity to consult one’s surroundings, and alter the inclination of one’s mind accordingly.  Still, as a matter of fact, I felt very ill!”

“And to-day?” she asked.

“To-day I am myself again,” he answered quickly:  “that usual normal self of mine, whatever that may mean.  I slept well, and I dreamed of you.  I can’t say that I had been thinking of you, because I had not.  But I dreamed that we were children together, and playmates.  Now that was very odd:  because I was a lonely child, and never had any playmates.”

“And I was lonely too,” said Bernardine.

“Every one is lonely,” he said, “but every one does not know it.”

“But now and again the knowledge comes like a revelation,” she said, “and we realise that we stand practically alone, out of any one’s reach for help or comfort.  When you come to think of it, too, how little able we are to explain ourselves.  When you have wanted to say something which was burning within you, have you not noticed on the face of the listener that unmistakable look of non-comprehension, which throws you back on yourself?  That is one of the moments when the soul knows its own loneliness!”

Robert Allitsen looked up at her.

“You little thing,” he said, “you put things neatly sometimes.  You have felt, haven’t you?”

“I suppose so,” she said.  “But that is true of most people.”

“I beg your pardon,” he answered, “most people neither think nor feel:  unless they think they have an ache, and then they feel it!”