The Incomplete Amorist

"Sweet friend," said the letter: "This is to say good-bye for a little while. But you will think of me when I am away, won't you? I am going into the country to make some sketches and to think. I don't believe it is possible for English people to think in Paris. And I have things to think over that won't let themselves be thought over quietly here. And I want to see the Spring. I won't ask you to write to me, because I want to be quite alone, and not to have even a word from my sweet and dear friend. I hope your work will go well.

"Yours, "Robert Temple."

Betty, in bed, was re-reading this when Vernon's knock came at her door. She spoke to him through the door with the letter in her hand. And her real thought when she asked him if he had come to break bad news was that something had happened to Temple.

She went back to bed, but not to sleep. Try as she would, she could not keep away the wonder--what could Vernon have had to say that wanted so badly to get itself said? She hid her eyes and would not look in the face of her hope. There had been a tone in his voice as he whispered on the other side of that stupid door, a tone she had not heard since Long Barton.

Oh, why had she gone to bed early that night of all nights? She would never go to bed early again as long as she lived!

What?--No, impossible! Yes. Another knock at her door. She sprang out of bed, and stood listening. There was no doubt about it. Vernon had come back. After all what he had to say would not keep till morning. A wild idea of dressing and letting him in was sternly dismissed. For one thing, at topmost speed, it took twenty minutes to dress. He would not wait twenty minutes. Another knock.

She threw on her dressing gown and ran along her little passage--and stooped to the key-hole just as another tap, discreet but insistent, rang on the door panel.

"Go away," she said low and earnestly. "I can't talk to you to-night whatever it is. It must wait till the morning."

"It's I," said the very last voice in all Paris that she expected to hear, "it's Lady St. Craye.--Won't you let me in?"

"Are you alone?" said Betty.

"Of course I'm alone. It's most important. Do open the door."