"Then there is nothing to tell?" she said once more, in a weary tone of entreaty, clasping her hands.
"No, dear Eva, nothing at all. Only I am worn out, you see—quite an old man—and so I worry myself sometimes about you two. When I am far away—far from London—will you be happy? Tell me, Eva, will you be happy? Promise me, swear to me that you will."
She gently nodded in the affirmative, with a sigh of regret that he must leave London—regret for what he had suggested, worst of all for what he had left unsaid: the mystery, the terror! He, meanwhile, had risen; holding out his hands to her, and shaking his head, as though over the follies of man, he said, with his most pathetic smile:
"How silly you must think me, to torment myself so about nothing. I ought not to have said so much; perhaps I have saddened you with it all. Have I?"
"No," she replied with a gentle smile, shaking her head. "No, not really."
He let himself drop into a chair, sighing deeply.
"Alas! such is life!" he murmured, with a fixed gaze full of sinister significance. She made no answer, her heart was too full.
By this time it was dark. Van Maeren took his leave. Frank alone had been asked to stay to dinner.
"Have you forgiven me?" he asked, very humbly, with his most insinuating and romantic air, as the last rays of daylight shed an ethereal glow on his face.
"For what?" she said, but she was silently weeping.
"For having distressed you, even for a minute?"
She nodded, and rose, trembling, exhausted, and tottering.
"Oh, yes; you gave me a great fright. But you will not do so again, I beg."
"Never," he murmured.
He kissed her hand; a courteous caress he was accustomed to bestow, with a touch of foppery like an eighteenth century marquis; and he went away.
She was left alone. Standing there, in the middle of the room, she closed her eyes, and she felt as though a mist had fallen and enwrapped her. And in that mist she saw Moldeho'i and the spectral fjord gleaming between the tvvo ranges of protecting mountains, and far away, in the west, those three thin bars of gold. x'\nd suddenly she felt, as she had never felt before, so forlorn, so lonely, in the midst of the cloud, without even a thought of Sir Archibald and Frank, remembering nothing but her long dead mother. A weight pressed on her brain, like the icy palm of a giant's hand; dusky gloom closed in upon her, and suddenly the living warmth within her was chilled as with a deadly frost. She felt as if she were standing in vast space, and through it—invisible, intangible, and yet sensibly and undeniably real—she was aware of a coming horror, rolling dully on like distant thunder. She stretched out her hands, feeling for some support. But she did not fall senseless; she recovered herself; and found that she was still in the middle of the room, now almost dark, a little tremulous, and with a feeble sensation about the knees. And she could not but think that there was something yet—something which Bertie had concealed from her.
CHAPTER XIV
Next day she thought it all over once more. What was it? What was it? Would Bertie have pitied her so if there really had been nothing in it but his own pessimistic fears for her happiness? Or was he not indeed hiding something? And had it anything to do with Frank?
And then Frank came, and she often saw him sit quite still for a time, with a frown on his brow.
"What is the matter?" she asked. And he replied just as usual:
"Nothing, sweetheart."
And they chatted together, at first a little constrained, but soon quite happy again in their plans and dreams, forgetting what weighed on their minds. Eva would laugh brightly, and perch herself on Frank's knee, and play with his mustache. But if Bertie came in, something seemed at once to come between them; a shadow which parted them.
It was when the friends were alone together that they were most ill at ease. Then Westhove could only long to turn Van Maeren out of doors at once, without the smallest perceptible cause, like a mangy hound. He pictured Bertie as he had seen him standing shivering in his wretched raiment that snowy night. Now he was such a dandy, and nothing was too good for him; and he was irreproachable ; he did not even go oft" for a few days at a time, wandering obscurely like a cat. He was always "interesting," with his halo of melancholy; and since the scene over the secretaryship, he often assumed a reproachful tone in his voice and expression when speaking to Frank.
Eva, when left to herself, was deeply wretched. Chaotic doubts tortured her soul, doubts which, for the moment, she could set aside, but which would force themselves on her as soon as she thought of Bertie's sympathetic smile and strange compassion for her. Oh! what was it? What was it? She had often meant to talk it over with Frank, but when she was on the point of beginning the subject, she did not know what to say. That Bertie pitied her? It could be nothing but his own pessimism which, in its universal humanity, regarded the world as worthy of pity, since
