Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the platform.  Stafford involuntarily shrank back.

“Just in time!” Eugene was saying; “though why the dickens you people will start at such an hour, I don’t know.  Haddington, I suppose, always must be in a hurry—­never does for a rising man to admit he’s got spare time.  But you, Kate!  Its positively uncomplimentary!”

He spoke lightly, but there was a troubled look on his face; and as Haddington went off to take the tickets he drew near to Kate, and said suddenly: 

“You are determined on this, Kate?”

“On what?” she asked coldly.

“Why, to go like this—­to bolt—­it almost comes to that—­leaving things as they are between us?”

“Why not?”

“And with Haddington?”

“Do you mean to insult me?”

“Of course not.  But how do you think it must look to me?  What do you imagine my course must be?”

“Really, Eugene, I see no need for this scene.  I suppose your course will be to wait till I ask you to fulfill your promise, and then to fulfill it.  You have no sort of cause for complaint.”

Eugene could not resist a smile.

“You are sublime!” he said.  Perhaps he would have said more, but at this moment, to his intense surprise, his eyes met Stafford’s.  The latter gave him a quick look, in obedience to which he checked his exclamation, and, making some excuse about a parcel due and not arrived, unceremoniously handed Kate to a carriage, bundled Haddington in after her, and walked rapidly to the front of the train, where he had just seen Stafford getting into a third-class compartment.

“What in the world’s the meaning of this, my dear old boy?”

“I have left a note for you.”

“That will explain?”

“No,” said Stafford, with his unsparing truthfulness, “it will not explain.”

“How fagged you look!”

“Yes, I am tired.”

“You must go now, and like this?”

“I think that is less bad than anything else.”

“You can’t tell me?”

“Not now, old fellow.  Perhaps I will some day.”

“You’ll let me know what you’re doing?  Hallo, she’s off!  And, Stafford, nothing ever between us?”

“Why should there be?” he answered, with some surprise.  “But you know there couldn’t be.”

The train moved on as they shook hands, and Eugene retraced his steps to his phaeton.

“He’s given her up,” he said to himself, with an irrepressible feeling of relief.  “Poor old fellow!  Now—­”

But Eugene’s reflections were not of a character that need or would repay recording.  He ought to have been ashamed of himself.  I venture to think he was.  Nevertheless, he arrived home in better spirits than a man has any right to enjoy when he has seen his mistress depart in a temper and his best friend in sorrow.  Our spirits are not always obedient to the dictates of propriety.  It is often equally in vain that we call them from the vasty deep, or try to dismiss them to it.  They are rebellious creatures, whose only merit is their sincerity.