She was silent, and he knew.

“How can I persuade you?  I can only repeat that I’ve absolutely nothing to do with it.”  There was but little friendliness about him now.  His whole manner was full of weariness and irritation.  “Why should you imagine that I had?”

“Because it would have been so very like you.”

“Then I must be lying abominably.  Is that so very like me?”

“I have heard you do it before—­once—­twice—­magnificently.”

“When?”

“About this time nine years ago.”

He remembered.  The wonder was that she should have remembered too.

“I daresay.  But what possible motive could I have for lying now?”

He had scored heavily this time.  Far too heavily.  There was a flame in Lucia’s face which did not come from the glow of the fire, a flame that ran over her neck and forehead to the fine tips of her ears.  For she thought, supposing all the time he had been telling her the simple truth?  Why should she have raised that question?  Why should she have taken for granted that any personal interest should have led him to do this thing?  And in wondering she was ashamed.  He saw her confusion, and attributed it to another cause.

“I’m only asking you to keep the two things distinct, as I do—­as I must do,” he said gently.

“I’ll think about it, and let you know to-morrow.”

“But I’m going to-night.”

“Oh no, I can’t let you do that.  You must stay over the night.  Your room is ready for you.”

He protested; she insisted; and in the end she had her way, as he meant to have his way to-morrow.

He stayed, and all that evening they were very kind to him.  Kitty talked gaily throughout dinner; and afterwards Lucia played to him while he rested, propped up with great cushions (she had insisted on the cushions) in her chair.  Kitty, his hostess, drew back, and seemed to leave these things to Lucia as her right.  He knew it was Lucia, and not Kitty, who ran up to his room to see that all was comfortable and that his fire burnt well.  In everything she said and did there was a peculiar gentleness and care.  It was on the same lines as Kitty’s compassion, only more poignant and intense.  It was, he thought, as if she knew that it was for the last time, that of all these pleasant things to-morrow would see the end.  Was it kind of her to let him know what her tenderness could be when to-morrow must end it all?  For he had no notion of the fear evoked by his appearance, the fear that was in both their hearts.  He did not know why they looked at him with those kind glances, nor why Lucia told him that Robert was close at hand if he should want anything in the night.  He slept in the room that had once been Lucia’s, the room above the library, looking to the western hills.  He did not know that they had given it him because it was a good room to be ill and to get well in.

Lucia and Kitty sat up late that night over the fire, and they talked of him.