She was alone when the servant announced him; with her sat her old companion, Grim.  As Waymark entered, she looked at him with friendly smile, and said quietly—­

“I thought you would never come again”

“I have not kept away through thoughtlessness,” he replied.  “Believe that; it is the truth.  And to-night I have only come to say good-bye.  I am going to leave London.”

You used to say nothing would induce you to leave London, and that you couldn’t live anywhere else.”

“Yes; that was one of my old fancies.  I am going right away into the country, at all events for a year or two.  I suppose I shall write novels.”

He moved uneasily under her gaze, and affected a cheerfulness which could not deceive her.

“Has your book been a success?” Ida asked.

“No; it fell dead.”

“Why didn’t you give me a copy?”

“I thought too little of it.  It’s poor stuff.  Better you shouldn’t read it”

“But I have read it.”

“Got it from the library, did you?”

“No; I bought it.”

“What a pity to waste so much money!”

“Why do you speak like that?  You know how anything of yours would interest me.”

“Oh yes, in a certain way, of course.”

“For its own sake, too.  I can’t criticise, but I know it held me as nothing else ever did.  It was horrible in many parts, but I was the better for reading it.”

He could not help showing pleasure, and grew more natural.  Ida had purposely refrained from speaking of the book when she read it, more than a month ago, always hoping that he would be the first to say something about it.  But the news he had brought her to-night put an end to reticence on her side.  She must speak out her heart, cost her what it might.

“Who should read it, if not I?” she said, as he remained silent.  “Who can possibly understand it half so well as I do?”

“Yes,” he remarked, with wilful misunderstanding, “you have seen the places and the people.  And I hear you are going on with the work your grandfather began?”

“I am trying to do something.  If you had been able to give me a little time now and then, I should have asked you to advise and help me.  It is hard to work there single-handed.”

“You are too good for that; I should have liked to think of you as far apart from those vile scenes.”

“Too good for it?” Her voice trembled.  “How can any one be too good to help the miserable?  If you had said that I was not worthy of such a privilege—­Can you, knowing me as no one else does or ever will, think that I could live here in peace, whilst those poor creatures stint and starve themselves every week to provide me with comforts?  Do I seem to you such a woman?”

He only smiled, his lips tortured to hold their peace.

“I had hoped you understood me better than that.  Is that why you have left me to myself?  Do you doubt my sincerity?  Why do you speak so cruelly, saying I am too good, when your real thoughts must be so different?  You mean that I am incapable of really doing anything; you have no faith in me.  I seem to you too weak to pursue any high end.  You would not even speak to me of your book, because you felt I should not appreciate it.  And yet you do know me—­”