They stood beside the carriage. The coachman was on the ground remedying something wrong with the harness.
Suddenly Manisty put out his hand and seized his companion's.
'Eleanor!'—he said imploringly—'Eleanor!'
His lips could not form a word more. But his eyes spoke for him. They breathed compunction, entreaty; they hinted what neither could ever say; they asked pardon for offences that could never be put into words.
Eleanor did not shrink. Her look met his in the first truly intimate gaze that they had ever exchanged; hers infinitely sad, full of a dignity recovered, and never to be lost again, the gaze, indeed, of a soul that was already withdrawing itself gently, imperceptibly from the things of earth and sense; his agitated and passionate. It seemed to him that he saw the clear brown of those beautiful eyes just cloud with tears. Then they dropped, and the moment was over, the curtain fallen, for ever.
They sighed, and moved apart. The coachman climbed upon the box.
'To-night!'—she said, smiling—waving her hand—'Till to-night.'
'Avanti!' cried the coachman, and the horses began to toil sleepily up the hill.
* * * * *
'Sapphira was nothing to me!' thought Eleanor as she threw herself back in the old shabby landau with a weariness of body that made little impression however on the tension of her mind.