He regarded her attentively.

“You feel the burden?”

She delayed her answer, glancing at him with a new expression—­a deprecating tenderness.

“It’s better to tell you.  I do feel it, and have always felt it.”

“Confound this infernal atmosphere!” Hilliard broke out wrathfully.  “It’s making you morbid again.  Come here to me!  Eve—­come!”

As she sat motionless, he caught her hands and drew her forward, and sat down again with her passive body resting upon his knees.  She was pale, and looked frightened.

“Your gratitude be hanged!  Pay me back with your lips—­so—­and so!  Can’t you understand that when my lips touch yours, I have a delight that would be well purchased with years of semi-starvation?  What is it to me how I won you?  You are mine for good and all—­ that’s enough.”

She drew herself half away, and stood brightly flushed, touching her hair to set it in order again.  Hilliard, with difficulty controlling himself, said in a husky voice—­

“Is the mood gone?”

Eve nodded, and sighed.

CHAPTER XX

At the time appointed for their next meeting, Hilliard waited in vain.  An hour passed, and Eve, who had the uncommon virtue of punctuality, still did not come.  The weather was miserable—­rain, fog, and slush—­but this had heretofore proved no obstacle, for her lodgings were situated less than half a mile away.  Afraid of missing her if he went out, he fretted through another hour, and was at length relieved by the arrival of a letter of explanation.  Eve wrote that she had been summoned to Dudley; her father was stricken with alarming illness, and her brother had telegraphed.

For two days he heard nothing; then came a few lines which told him that Mr. Madeley could not live many more hours.  On the morrow Eve wrote that her father was dead.

To the letter which he thereupon despatched Hilliard had no reply for nearly a week.  When Eve wrote, it was from a new address at Dudley.  After thanking him for the kind words with which he had sought to comfort her, she continued—­

“I have at last found something to do, and it was quite time, for I have been very miserable, and work is the best thing for me.  Mr. Welland, my first employer, when I was twelve years old, has asked me to come and keep his books for him, and I am to live in his house.  My brother has gone into lodgings, and we see no more of the cottage on Kate’s Hill.  It’s a pity I have to be so far from you again, but there seems to be no hope of getting anything to do in Birmingham, and here I shall be comfortable enough, as far as mere living goes.  On Sunday I shall be quite free, and will come over as often as possible; but I have caught a bad cold, and must be content to keep in the house until this dreadful weather changes.  Be more careful of yourself than you generally are, and let me hear often.  In a few months’ time we shall be able to spend pleasant hours on the Castle Hill.  I have heard from Patty, and want to tell you about her letter, but this cold makes me feel too stupid Will write again soon.”