“I daresay, my dear.  Where shall we go?”

“Oh, I leave that to you.”

“No, Sydney.  It was I who proposed coming to London.  You shall decide this time.”

She submitted, and promised to think of it.  Leaving him, with the first expression of trouble that had shown itself in her face, she took up the songs and put them into the pocket of her dress.  On the point of removing the letters next, she noticed the newspaper on the table.  “Anything interesting to-day?” she asked—­and drew the newspaper toward her to look at it.  He took it from her suddenly, almost roughly.  The next moment he apologized for his rudeness.  “There is nothing worth reading in the paper,” he said, after begging her pardon.  “You don’t care about politics, do you?”

Instead of answering, she looked at him attentively.

The heightened color which told of recent exercise, healthily enjoyed, faded from her face.  She was silent; she was pale.  A little confused, he smiled uneasily.  “Surely,” he resumed, trying to speak gayly, “I haven’t offended you?”

“There is something in the newspaper,” she said, “which you don’t want me to read.”

He denied it—­but he still kept the newspaper in his own possession.  Her voice sank low; her face turned paler still.

“Is it all over?” she asked.  “And is it put in the newspaper?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the Divorce.”

He went back again to the window and looked out.  It was the easiest excuse that he could devise for keeping his face turned away from her.  She followed him.

“I don’t want to read it, Herbert.  I only ask you to tell me if you are a free man again.”

Quiet as it was, her tone left him no alternative but to treat her brutally or to reply.  Still looking out at the street, he said “Yes.”

“Free to marry, if you like?” she persisted.

He said “Yes” once more—­and kept his face steadily turned away from her.  She waited a while.  He neither moved nor spoke.

Surviving the slow death little by little of all her other illusions, one last hope had lingered in her heart.  It was killed by that cruel look, fixed on the view of the street.

“I’ll try to think of a place that we can go to at the seaside.”  Having said those words she slowly moved away to the door, and turned back, remembering the packet of letters.  She took it up, paused, and looked toward the window.  The streets still interested him.  She left the room.

Chapter XXXII.

Miss Westerfield.