Either the increased kindness of his friend's tone, or the conviction that there is, at least, something of truth in his explanations, lets loose again the fountain of Byng's tears, and once more he throws his head down upon his hands and cries extravagantly.
"It is an awful facer for you, I know," says Burgoyne, standing over him, and, though perfectly dry-eyed, yet probably not very much less miserable than the young mourner, whose loud weeping fills him with an almost unbearable and yet compunctious exasperation.
"What is he made of? how can he do it?" are the questions that he keeps irefully putting to himself; and for fear lest in an access of uncontrollable irritation he shall ask them out loud, he moves to the door. At the slight noise he makes in opening it Byng lifts his head.
"Are you going?"
"Yes; if it is any consolation to you, you have not a monopoly of wretchedness to-day. Things are not looking very bright for me either. Amelia is ill."
"Amelia," repeats the other, with a hazy look, as if not at first able to call to mind who Amelia is; then, with a return of consciousness, "Is Amelia ill? Oh poor Amelia! Amelia was very good to her. Amelia tried to draw her out. She liked Amelia!"
"Well"—with an impatient sigh—"unfortunately that did not hinder Amelia from falling ill."
"She is not ill really?"—his inborn kind-heartedness struggling for a moment to make head against the selfishness of his absorption.
"I do not know"—uneasily—"I am going back to the hotel to hear the doctor's verdict. Will you walk as far as to the Anglo-Américain with me? There is no use in your staying here."
But at this proposition the lover's sobs break out louder and more infuriating than ever.