'You never tell me any of your secrets, Ida,' she said, reproachfully, after one of these lengthy discussions. 'I am always prosing about my affairs, until I must seem a lump of egotism. Why don't you make me listen sometimes? I should be deeply interested in any dream of yours, if it were ever so wild.'

'My darling, I have no dreams, wild or tame,' said Ida. She could not say that she had no secret, having that one dreadful secret hanging over her and overshadowing her life.

'And have you never been in love?'

'Never. I once thought—almost thought—that I was in love. It was like drifting away in a frail, dancing little boat over an unknown sea—all very well while the sun shone and the boat went gaily—suddenly the boat fell to pieces, and I found myself in the cold, cruel water.'

'Horrid!' cried Bess, with a shudder. 'That could not have been real love.'

'No, dear, it was a will-o'-the-wisp, not the true light.'

'And you have got over it?'

'Quite. I am perfectly happy in the life I lead now.'

This was the truth. There are these calm pauses in most lives—blessed intervals of bliss without passion—a period in which heart and mind are both at rest, and yet growing and becoming nobler and purer in the time of repose, just as the body grows during sleep.

And thus Ida's life, full and useful, glided on, and the days went by only too swiftly; for it was never out of her mind that these days of tranquil happiness were numbered, that she was bound in honour to leave Kingthorpe before Brian Walford could feel the oppression of banishment from his kindred. At present Brian Walford was living in Paris, with an old college friend, both these youths being supposed to be studying the French language and literature, with a view to making themselves more valuable at the English bar. He had given up his chambers in the Temple, as too expensive for a man living from hand to mouth. He was understood to be contributing to the English magazines, and to be getting his living decently, which was better than languishing under the cognizance of the Lamb and Flag, with no immediate prospect of briefs.