Our eyes met again. He nodded at me, confirming his last words. "You may rely on that," he seemed to say.
"Do you leave by an early train to-morrow?" I asked.
"Yes—first thing in the morning."
"By this time to-morrow I shall feel very kindly toward you, Octon, and the more kindly for what you've told me to-day."
"I believe you will, and I understand the deferred payment of your love." He smiled at me again. "You're true to your salt, and I suppose you're a bit in love yourself, though you don't seem to know anything about it. Well, take care of her—take care of this great woman."
"I don't want to talk about her to you. I don't see the good of it."
"You ought to want to, because I understand her. But since you don't——" He dropped the poker with a clatter and reared himself to his height. "I'd better go, for, as heaven's above us, I can talk and think of nothing else—till to-morrow."
"Where are you going to?"
"Into the dark"—he laughed gruffly—"Continent. Did my melodrama alarm you? Not that it's dark any longer—more's the pity! It's not very likely we shall meet again this side the Styx." He held out his hand to me with a genuinely friendly air.
"We're both young!" I said as I clasped his hand. In the end, still, I liked him, and his story had moved me to a new pity. It was all of a piece with his perversity that he should have hidden so long his strongest claim to sympathy.