He took her hand, held it for an instant “I don’t think you will ever see me again,” he said in a low voice. “Thank you for being sorry for me;” then he was gone.
Cicely sat down by the table. She buried her face in her hands and cried bitterly. “I am so sorry for him,” she said to herself over and over again. “Why do things go wrong in this world always? I wish I could think that Trevor cared for me as that man does.”
Mr. Guildford went upstairs to see Colonel Methvyn. He sat with him for half an hour, talking as cheerfully as usual, intending, at least once in every five minutes of that half-hour, to break to Cicely’s father the news of his intended departure; but in the end he failed to do so. Colonel Methvyn seemed nervous and depressed, and Mr. Guildford’s courage played him false. He compromised matters at last by promising to call again the next day. “To-morrow,” he said to himself, as he walked slowly down the drive, “to-morrow I shall be better able to talk of my leaving, quietly, so that no one can suspect anything. But I must manage to avoid seeing her again. Oh, Cicely! When I would give ten years of my life for a moment’s glimpse of you! But she said goodbye, and she meant it.”
END OF VOL. II.
VOLUME III.
[CHAPTER I.]
DÉSILLUSIONNÉE.
“What made the Ball so fine?
Robin was there.
* * * * * *
But now thou’rt lost to me,
Robin Adair.
“CICELY,” said Mrs. Methvyn late that afternoon, “I want you to do something to please me.”