“I understand.”

“Anything he tells you, about signing papers, and such things, you may be sure is all right.”

“Yes.”

“But don’t do anything, without consulting me, for anybody else, remember.”

“I’ll remember,” I said absently and humbly.  It was no wonder Richard felt I needed somebody to take care of me!

“I believe there’s nothing else I wanted to say to you,” he said at last, moving from the mantelpiece where he had been standing; “at least, nothing that I can’t write about, when it occurs to me.”

“Oh, Richard!” I said, beginning to cry again, as I knew that the moment of parting had come, “I don’t understand you at all.  I think you take it very calm.”

“Isn’t that the way to take it?” he said, in a voice that was, certainly, very calm indeed.

I looked up in his face:  he was ten years older.  I really was frightened at the change in him.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, putting my face down in my hands, “I wasn’t worth all I’ve made you suffer.”

“Maybe you weren’t,” he said simply, “But it wasn’t either your fault or mine—­and you couldn’t help it—­that I wanted you.”

He made a quick movement as he passed the table, and my work-basket fell at his feet, and a little jewel-box rolled across the floor.  It was a ring he had brought me, only three days before.

He stooped to pick it up, and I saw his features contract as if in pain, as he laid it back upon the table.  And his voice was unsteady, as he said, not looking at me while he spoke, “I hope you won’t send any of these things back.  If there’s anything you’re willing to keep, because I gave it to you, I’d like it very much.  The rest send to your church, or somewhere.  I don’t want to have to look at them again.”

By this time I was sobbing, and, sitting down by the table, had buried my face on my arms.

“I’m sorry that it makes you feel so,” he said, “but it can’t be helped.  Don’t cry, I can’t bear to see you cry.  Good-bye, Pauline; God bless you.”

And he was gone.  I did not realize it, and did not lift my head, till I heard the heavy sound of the outer door closing after him.

Then I knew it was all over, and that things were changed for me indeed.

“I cannot cry and get over it as you can,” he had said.

And if tears would have got me over it, I should have been cured that night.

CHAPTER XXIV.

MY NEW WORLD.

Few are the fragments left of follies past;
For worthless things are transient.  Those that last
Have in them germs of an eternal spirit,
And out of good their permanence inherit.

Bowring.

    Nor they unblest,

Who underneath the world’s bright vest
With sackcloth tame their aching breast,
The sharp-edged cross in jewels hide.