“Well, Frank!”

“Well, Rose!  How have you sped?”

“I have got a house; but it is in Marine Terrace.  I don’t know what you’ll say to me.”

“I don’t know that it signifies.”

“You are shivering!  What’s the matter?”

“Only, it is very cold!”

(Aside.  “Ring the bell, Terry, he is as cold as ice.”) “Did you see her?”

“Oh yes.  Did you have any luncheon?” ("Some port-wine and hot water directly, please.”)

“Yes, I believe so.  You are not ordering anything for me?  There’s nothing amiss—­only it is so cold.”

“It is cold, and you are not to be cold; nor are we to be cold, sir.  You must go to bed early in the evening, Terry,” said Rosamond, at last.  “I shall make nothing of him while you are by, and an hour’s more sleep will not be lost on you.”

“Will you come and tell me then, Rosey?  I deserve something.”

“What, for sleeping there instead of here, when you’ve nothing to do?”

“Indeed, but I have.  I want to make out this little Chaucer.  I shall go down to the coffee-room and do it.”

“Well, if you like poking out your eyes with the gas in the coffee-room, I have no objection, since you are too proud to go to bed.  Wish him good night first, and do it naturally.”

“Nature would be thrown away on him, poor fellow,” said Terry, as he roused Frank with difficulty to have ‘Good night’ roared into his ear, and give a listless hand.  He was about to deal with Rosamond in the same way, but she said—­

“No, I am not going yet,” and settled herself opposite to him, with her half-knitted baby’s shoe in her hands, and her feet on the fender, her crape drawn up from the fire, disposed for conversation.  Frank, on the other hand, fell back into the old position, looking so wretched that she could bear it no longer, picked up the tube, forced it on him, and said, “Do tell me, dear Frank.  You used to tell me long ago.”

He shook his head.  “That’s all over.  You are very good, Rosamond, but you should not have forced her to come to me.”

“Not!”

“My life was not worth saving.”

“She has not gone back from you again?—­the horrible girl!” (this last aside).

“It is not that she has gone back.  She has never changed.  It is I who have forfeited her.”

“You!—­You!—­She has not cast you off?”

“You know how it was, and the resolution by which she had bound herself, and how I was maddened.”

“That!  I thought it was all forgiven and forgotten!” cried Rosamond.

“It is not a matter of forgiveness.  She put it to me whether it was possible to begin on a broken word.”

“Worse and worse!  Why, when you’ve spoken a foolish word, it is the foolishest thing in the world to hold to it.”

“If it were a foolish word!” said poor Frank.  “I think I could have atoned for that day, if she could have tried me; but when she left me to judge, and those eyes of sweet, sorrowful—­”