"Very weak, then; and I talk like a hysterical girl. But, seriously, if any man were given his choice, I think he'd prefer to cross the river at once to facing the gray and dreary days that lie before him."
"But the days that lie before you are brilliant; crimson with fame and fortune, instead of gray and dreary," she said. "Have you forgotten your success at—at the ball? that you were to play at the duchess'? Everybody says that you will become famous, that a great future lies before you, Mr. Falconer."
"Do they?" he said, gazing at the window dreamily. "No, I have not forgotten. I wonder whether they are right?"
"I know, I feel, they are right," she said quietly. "Very soon we shall all be bragging of your acquaintance—I, for one, at any rate. I shall never lose an opportunity of talking of 'my friend, Mr. Falconer, the great musician, you know.'"
"Yes," he said, looking at her with a faint smile. "I think you will be pleased. And I——"
He paused.
"Well?" she asked.
"If the prophecy comes true, I shall spend my time looking back at the old days, and sighing for the Buildings, for that sunny room of yours, with the tea kettle singing on the hob, and——Has Dick come back from Angleford?"
Nell nodded.
"And the man? Has he been committed for trial?"