“We’ll talk no more of it.  It was right to tell me.  I’m glad now it’s all over.  Look at the moon rising—­harvest moon, isn’t it?”

Eve turned aside again, and leaned on the parapet.  He, lingering apart for a moment, at length drew nearer.  Of her own accord she put her hands in his.

“In future,” she said, “you shall know everything I do.  You can trust me:  there will be no more secrets.”

“Yet you are afraid——­”

“It’s for your sake.  You must be free for the next year or two.  I shall be glad to get to work again.  I am well and strong and cheerful.”

Her eyes drew him with the temptation he had ever yet resisted.  Eve did not refuse her lips.

“You must write to Patty,” she said, when they were at the place of parting.  “I shall have her new address in a day or two.”

“Yes, I will write to her.”

CHAPTER XVIII

By the end of November Hilliard was well at work in the office of Messrs. Birching, encouraged by his progress and looking forward as hopefully as a not very sanguine temperament would allow.  He lived penuriously, and toiled at professional study night as well as day.  Now and then he passed an evening with Robert Narramore, who had moved to cozy bachelor quarters a little distance out of town, in the Halesowen direction.  Once a week, generally on Saturday, he saw Eve.  Other society he had none, nor greatly desired any.

But Eve had as yet found no employment.  Good fortune in this respect seemed to have deserted her, and at her meetings with Hilliard she grew fretful over repeated disappointments.  Of her day-to-day life she made no complaint, but Hilliard saw too clearly that her spirits were failing beneath a burden of monotonous dulness.  That the healthy glow she had brought back in her cheeks should give way to pallor was no more than he had expected, but he watched with anxiety the return of mental symptoms which he had tried to cheat himself into believing would not reappear.  Eve did not fail in pleasant smiles, in hopeful words; but they cost her an effort which she lacked the art to conceal.  He felt a coldness in her, divined a struggle between conscience and inclination.  However, for this also he was prepared; all the more need for vigour and animation on his own part.

Hilliard had read of the woman who, in the strength of her love and loyalty, heartens a man through all the labours he must front he believed in her existence, but had never encountered her—­as indeed very few men have.  From Eve he looked for nothing of the kind.  If she would permit herself to rest upon his sinews, that was all he desired.  The mood of their last night in Paris might perchance return, but only with like conditions.  Of his workaday passion she knew nothing; habit of familiarity and sense of obligation must supply its place with her until a brightening future once more set her emotions to the gladsome tune.