“Now, listen!” urged Mrs. Milray.  “You think I’m just saying it because, if you don’t take it I shall have to tell Mr. Milray I was so hateful to you, you couldn’t.  Well, I should hate to tell him that; but that isn’t the reason.  There!” She tore the letter in pieces, and threw it on the floor.  Clementina did not make any sign of seeing this, and Mrs. Milray dropped upon her chair again.  “Oh, how hard you are!  Can’t you say something to me?”

Clementina did not lift her eyes.  “I don’t feel like saying anything just now.”

Mrs. Milray was silent a moment.  Then she sighed.  “Well, you may hate me, but I shall always be your friend.  What hotel are you going to in Liverpool?

“I don’t know,” said Clementina.

“You had better come to the one where we go.  I’m afraid Mrs. Lander won’t know how to manage very well, and we’ve been in Liverpool so often.  May I speak to her about it?”

“If you want to,” Clementina coldly assented.

“I see!” said Mrs. Milray.  “You don’t want to be under the same roof with me.  Well, you needn’t!  But I’ll tell you a good hotel:  the one that the trains start out of; and I’ll send you that letter for Miss Milray.”  Clemeutina was silent.  “Well, I’ll send it, anyway.”

Mrs. Milray went away in sudden tears, but the girl remained dry-eyed.

XIX.

Mrs. Lander realized when the ship came to anchor in the stream at Liverpool that she had not been seasick a moment during the voyage.  In the brisk cold of the winter morning, as they came ashore in the tug, she fancied a property of health in the European atmosphere, which she was sure would bring her right up, if she stayed long enough; and a regret that she had never tried it with Mr. Lander mingled with her new hopes for herself.

But Clementina looked with home-sick eyes at the strangeness of the alien scene:  the pale, low heaven which seemed not to be clouded and yet was so dim; the flat shores with the little railroad trains running in and out over them; the grimy bulks of the city, and the shipping in the river, sparse and sombre after the gay forest of sails and stacks at New York.

She did not see the Milrays after she left the tug, in the rapid dispersal of the steamer’s passengers.  They both took leave of her at the dock, and Mrs. Milray whispered with penitence in her voice and eyes, “I will write,” but the girl did not answer.

Before Mrs. Lander’s trunks and her own were passed, she saw Lord Lioncourt going away with his heavily laden man at his heels.  Mr. Ewins came up to see if he could help her through the customs, but she believed that he had come at Mrs. Milray’s bidding, and she thanked him so prohibitively that he could not insist.  The English clergyman who had spoken to her the morning after the charity entertainment left his wife with Mrs. Lander, and came to her help, and then Mr. Ewins went his way.