"You are really going, then?"
"I am going for a little time out of your life, Lady Angela," I answered. "It is necessary: Lord Chelsford knows that. But I am not going in disgrace. I am very thankful to be able to tell you that."
"It was not necessary to tell me," she answered. "Am I not here?"
I bent low over her hand, which rested still in mine.
"Mine is not a purposeless exile—nor altogether an unhappy one—now," I said. "I have work to do, Lady Angela, and I am going to it with a good heart. When we meet again I hope that it may be differently. Your coming—the memory of it will stand often between me and loneliness. It will sweeten the very bitterest of my days."
"You are really going—to China?" she murmured.
I glanced towards Lord Chelsford. His back was turned to us. If he understood the meaning of my pause he made no sign.
"I may not tell you where I am going or why," I answered. "But I will tell you this, Lady Angela. I shall come back, and as you have come to see me to-night, so shall I come to you before long. If you will trust me I will prove myself worthy of it."
She did not answer me with any word at all, but with a sudden little forward movement of both her hands, and I saw that her eyes were swimming in tears. Yet they shone into mine like stars, and I saw heaven there.
"I am sorry," Lord Chelsford said, gravely interposing, "but Lady Chelsford will be waiting for you, Angela. And I think that I must ask you to remember that I cannot sanction, or appear by my silence to sanction, anything of this sort."