He took her hand to bid her good-bye.

“Natalie and I are not likely to quarrel,” said he, cheerfully.  “Now I am going away.  If I stayed, you would do nothing but talk about her, whereas it is necessary that you should have some dinner, then read one of these books for an hour or so, then go to bed and have a long, sound night’s rest.  You must be looking your brightest when she comes to see you to-morrow.”

And indeed, as it turned out subsequently, this warning; of the mother’s was not wholly unnecessary.  Next day at eleven o’clock, as had previously been arranged, Brand met Natalie at the corner of Great Stanhope Street to escort her to the house to which her mother had removed.  He had not even got into the park with her when he perceived that her manner was distinctly reserved.  Anneli was with her, and she kept talking from time to time to the little maid, who was thus obliged, greatly against her will, to walk close to her mistress.  At last Brand said,

“Natalie, have I offended you?”

“Oh no!” she said, in a hurried, low voice.

“Natalie,” said he, very gently, “I once heard of a wicked creature who was determined to play the hypocrite, and might have done a great deal of mischief, only she had a most amiable mother, who stepped in and gave somebody else a warning.  Did you ever hear of such a wicked person?”

The blood mounted to her face.  By this time Anneli had taken leave to fall behind.

“Then,” said the girl, with some hesitation, and yet with firmness, “you will not misunderstand me.  If all the circumstances are to be altered, then—­then you must forget what I have said to you in moments of trouble.  I have a right to ask it.  You must forget the past altogether.”

“But it is impossible!”

“It is necessary.”

For some minutes they walked on in silence.  Then he felt a timid touch on his arm; her hand had been laid there, deprecatingly, for a moment.

“Are you angry with me?”

“No, I am not,” said he, frankly, “for the very reason that what you ask is impossible, unnecessary, absurd.  You might as well ask me to forget that I am alive.  In any case, isn’t it rather too soon?  Are you so sure that all the trouble is past?  Wait till the storm is well over, and we are going into port, then we will put on our Sunday manners to go ashore.”

“I am afraid you are angry with me,” she said again, timidly.

“You could not make me, if you tried,” he said, simply; “but I am proud of you, Natalie—­proud of the courage and clearness and frankness of your character, and I don’t like to see you fall away from that, and begin to consider what a school-mistress would think of you.”

“It is not what any one may think of me that I consider; it is what I think of myself,” she answered, in the same low voice.

They reached Hans Place.  The mother was at the door of the room to welcome them.  She took her daughter by the hand and led her in.