“Yes, Lady Laura;—­to say good-bye.  Not for ever, I hope, but probably for long.”

“No, not for ever.  At any rate, we will not think so.”  Then she paused; but he was silent, sitting with his hat dangling in his two hands, and his eyes fixed upon the floor.  “Do you know, Mr. Finn,” she continued, “that sometimes I am very angry with myself about you.”

“Then it must be because you have been too kind to me.”

“It is because I fear that I have done much to injure you.  From the first day that I knew you,—­do you remember, when we were talking here, in this very room, about the beginning of the Reform Bill;—­from that day I wished that you should come among us and be one of us.”

“I have been with you, to my infinite satisfaction,—­while it lasted.”

“But it has not lasted, and now I fear that it has done you harm.”

“Who can say whether it has been for good or evil?  But of this I am sure you will be certain,—­that I am very grateful to you for all the goodness you have shown me.”  Then again he was silent.

She did not know what it was that she wanted, but she did desire some expression from his lips that should be warmer than an expression of gratitude.  An expression of love,—­of existing love,—­she would have felt to be an insult, and would have treated it as such.  Indeed, she knew that from him no such insult could come.  But she was in that morbid, melancholy state of mind which requires the excitement of more than ordinary sympathy, even though that sympathy be all painful; and I think that she would have been pleased had he referred to the passion for herself which he had once expressed.  If he would have spoken of his love, and of her mistake, and have made some half-suggestion as to what might have been their lives had things gone differently,—­though she would have rebuked him even for that,—­still it would have comforted her.  But at this moment, though he remembered much that had passed between them, he was not even thinking of the Braes of Linter.  All that had taken place four years ago;—­and there had been so many other things since which had moved him even more than that!  “You have heard what I have arranged for myself?” she said at last.

“Your father has told me that you are going to Dresden.”

“Yes;—­he will accompany me,—­coming home of course for Parliament.  It is a sad break-up, is it not?  But the lawyer says that if I remain here I may be subject to very disagreeable attempts from Mr. Kennedy to force me to go back again.  It is odd, is it not, that he should not understand how impossible it is?”

“He means to do his duty.”

“I believe so.  But he becomes more stern every day to those who are with him.  And then, why should I remain here?  What is there to tempt me?  As a woman separated from her husband I cannot take an interest in those things which used to charm me.  I feel that I am crushed and quelled by my position, even though there is no disgrace in it.”