"You are going away, Walter?" she asked.
"Yes," said Ingleby. "In all probability I shall never come back."
The girl's cheeks were flushed, and there was a curious strained look in her eyes.
"You seem," she said, "quite willing to go."
Ingleby looked at her gravely. "It hurts me less than I expected it would have done. Still, even if I had been permitted, why should I wish to stay? I am poor again, and it is very likely shall always be so. There are barriers between you and me which can never be got over."
"You didn't believe that once."
"No," said Ingleby. "Still, I am wiser now, and what I may have to suffer is no more than my desert for believing that any man is warranted in trying to thrust himself above the station he was meant to occupy. That, however, isn't, after all, very much to the purpose."
"I suppose," and there was a tremor in the girl's voice, "you blame me for all that has happened?"
Ingleby's eyes were still fixed upon her with disconcerting steadiness. "It is not my part to reproach you, but I know what you did. You have wrecked the life of my best friend, and turned into a traitor a man whose work and words brought hope to thousands. Sewell will never lift his head again."
He spoke slowly, and a trifle hoarsely, but there was a hardness and resolution in his voice which struck a chill through the girl.