“Then you think that the every-day companionship, the every-day exchange of thoughts and ideas, counts for little or, nothing?” she asked.

“That is about the colour of it,” he answered, in his old gruff way.

She thought of his words when she was packing:  the many pleasant hours were to count for nothing; for nothing the little bits of fun, the little displays of temper and vexation, the snatches of serious talk, the contradictions, and all the petty details of six months’ close companionship.

He was not different from the others who had parted from her so lightly.  No wonder, then, that he could sympathise with them.

That last night at Petershof, Bernardine hardened her heart against the Disagreeable Man.

“I am glad I am able to do so,” she said to herself.  “It makes it easier for me to go.”

Then the vision of a forlorn figure rose before her.  And the little hard heart softened at once.

In the morning they breakfasted together as usual.  There was scarcely any conversation between them.  He asked for her address, and she told him that she was going back to her uncle who kept the second-hand book-shop in Stone Street.

“I will send you a guide-book from the Tyrol,” he explained.  “I shall be going there in a week or two to see my mother.”

“I hope you will find her in good health,” she said.

Then it suddenly flashed across her mind what he had told her about his one great sacrifice for his mother’s sake.  She looked up at him, and he met her glance without flinching.

He said good-bye to her at the foot of the staircase.

It was the first time she had ever shaken hands with him.

“Good-bye,” he said gently.  “Good luck to you.”

“Good-bye,” she answered.

He went up the stairs, and turned round as though he wished to say something more.  But he changed his mind, and kept his own counsel.

An hour later Bernardine left Petershof.  Only the concierge of the
Kurhaus saw her off at the station.

CHAPTER XX.

A LOVE-LETTER.

TWO days after Bernardine had left Petershof, the snows began to melt.  Nothing could be drearier than that process:  nothing more desolate than the outlook.

The Disagreeable Man sat in his bedroom trying to read Carpenter’s Anatomy.  It failed to hold him.  Then he looked out of the window, and listened to the dripping of the icicles.  At last he took a pen, and wrote as follows: 

“LITTLE COMRADE, LITTLE PLAYMATE.”

“I could not believe that you were really going.  When you first said that you would soon be leaving, I listened with unconcern, because it did not seem possible that the time could come when we should not be together; that the days would come and go, and that I should not know how you were; whether you were better, and more hopeful about your life and your work, or whether the old misery of indifference and ill-health was still clinging to you; whether your voice was strong as of one who had slept well and felt refreshed, or whether it was weak like that of one who had watched through the long night.