him, and yet could not let him go without clearing up the mystery. She told herself at one moment that she hardly knew him, at the next that between them nothing could be too secret for utterance.
What she hoped and feared befell her that morning. She went out for a walk in the Park, and before long she met the Premier, with his daughter and Norburn. The two last were laughing and talking—their quarrel was quite forgotten now—and Medland himself, she thought, looked as though his load of care were a little less heavy. The two men explained that they were on their way—a roundabout way, they confessed—to the Council, and had seized the chance of some fresh air, while Daisy was full of stories about yesterday's triumph, that left room only for a passing reference to yesterday's tragedy.
"I didn't like him at all," she said; "but still it's dreadful—a man one knew ever so slightly!"
Alicia agreed, and the next instant she found herself practically alone with Medland; for Daisy ran off to pick a wild-flower that caught her eye in the wood, and Norburn followed her. Not knowing whether to be glad or sorry, she made no effort to escape, and was silent while Medland began to speak of his prospects in that evening's division.
Suddenly she paused in her walk and lifted her eyes to his.
"You look happier," she said.
Medland's conscience smote him: he was looking happier because the man was dead.
"It's at the prospect of being a free man to-morrow," he answered, with a smile. "You know, Cincinnatus was very happy."
"But you're not like that."