all over, and swear that his gun was distraught, and look about as though he thought the world was coming to an end, if he missed to knock over his bird.  And there is your timid lover, who winks his eyes when he fires, who has felt certain from the moment in which he buttoned on his knickerbockers that he at any rate would kill nothing, and who, when he hears the loud congratulations of his friends, cannot believe that he really did bag that beautiful winged thing by his own prowess.  The beautiful winged thing which the timid man carries home in his bosom, declining to have it thrown into a miscellaneous cart, so that it may never be lost in a common crowd of game, is better to him than are the slaughtered hecatombs to those who kill their birds by the hundred.

But Dr Crofts had so winked his eye, that he was not in the least aware whether he had winged his bird or no.  Indeed, having no one at hand to congratulate him, he was quite sure that the bird had flown away uninjured into the next field.  “No” was the only word which Bell had given in answer to his last sidelong question, and No is not a comfortable word to lovers.  But there had been that in Bell’s No which might have taught him that the bird was not escaping without a wound, if he had still had any of his wits about him.

“Now I will go,” said he.  Then he paused for an answer, but none came.  “And you will understand what I meant when I spoke of being turned out.”

“Nobody—­turns you out.”  And Bell, as she spoke, had almost descended to a sob.

“It is time, at any rate, that I should go; is it not?  And, Bell, don’t suppose that this little scene will keep me away from your sister’s bedside.  I shall be here to-morrow, and you will find that you will hardly know me again for the same person.”  Then in the dark he put out his hand to her.

“Good-bye,” she said, giving him her hand.  He pressed hers very closely, but she, though she wished to do so, could not bring herself to return the pressure.  Her hand remained passive in his, showing no sign of offence; but it was absolutely passive.

“Good-bye, dearest friend,” he said.

“Good-bye,” she answered,—­and then he was gone.

She waited quite still till she heard the front-door close after him, and then she crept silently up to her own bedroom, and sat herself down in a low rocking-chair over the fire.  It was in accordance with a custom already established that her mother should remain with Lily till the tea was ready downstairs; for in these days of illness such dinners as were provided were eaten early.  Bell, therefore, knew that she had still some half-hour of her own, during which she might sit and think undisturbed.