Rosa fell on her knees, and asked Christopher’s pardon for having been jealous; and that day she was a flood of divine tenderness.  She repaid him richly for driving the cab.  But she was unnaturally cool about Lady Cicely; and the exquisite reason soon came out.  “Oh yes!  She is very good; very kind; but it is not for me now!  No! you shall not sail about with her cub of a cousin, and leave me at such a time.”

Christopher groaned.

“Christie, you shall not see that lady again.  She came here to part us.  She is in love with you.  I was blind not to see it before.”

Next day, as Lady Cicely sat alone in the morning-room thinking over this very scene, a footman brought in a card and a note.  “Dr. Staines begs particularly to see Lady Cicely Treherne.”

The lady’s pale cheek colored; she stood irresolute a single moment.  “I will see Dr. Staines,” said she.

Dr. Staines came in, looking pale and worn; he had not slept a wink since she saw him last.

She looked at him full, and divined this at a glance.  She motioned him to a seat, and sat down herself, with her white hand pressing her forehead, and her head turned a little away from him.

CHAPTER XIII.

He told her he had come to thank her for her great kindness, and to accept the offer.

She sighed.  “I hoped it was to decline it.  Think of the misery of separation, both to you and her.”

“It will be misery.  But we are not happy as it is, and she cannot bear poverty.  Nor is it fair she should, when I can give her every comfort by just playing the man for a year or two.”  He then told Lady Cicely there were more reasons than he chose to mention:  go he must, and would; and he implored her not to let the affair drop.  In short, he was sad but resolved, and she found she must go on with it, or break faith with him.  She took her desk, and wrote a letter concluding the bargain for him.  She stipulated for half the year’s fee in advance.  She read Dr. Staines the letter.

“You are a friend!” said he.  “I should never have ventured on that; it will be a godsend to my poor Rosa.  You will be kind to her when I am gone?”

“I will.”

“So will Uncle Philip, I think.  I will see him before I go, and shake hands.  He has been a good friend to me; but he was too hard upon her; and I could not stand that.”

Then he thanked and blessed her again, with the tears in his eyes, and left her more disturbed and tearful than she had ever been since she grew to woman.  “O cruel poverty!” she thought, “that such a man should be torn from his home, and thank me for doing it—­all for a little money—­and here are we poor commonplace creatures rolling in it.”

Staines hurried home, and told his wife.  She clung to him convulsively, and wept bitterly; but she made no direct attempt to shake his resolution; she saw, by his iron look, that she could only afflict, not turn him.