She halted, and after a moment looked him in the eyes. He saw then that she had been crying.
"The first time I came to see you, he whipped me," she said slowly.
"I am sorry; please——"
"Taffy——"
"Miss Honoria."
"I said—Taffy."
"Honoria, then."
"Do you know what it is to feel lonely, here?"
Taffy remembered the afternoons when he had roamed the sand-hills longing for George's company. "Why, yes," said he; "it used to be always lonely."
"I think we have been the loneliest children in the whole world—you and I and George; only George didn't feel it in the same way. And now it's coming to an end with you. You are going up to Oxford, and soon you will have heaps of friends. Can you not understand? Suppose there were two prisoners, alone in the same prison, but shut in different cells; and one heard that the other's release had come. He would feel—would he not?—that now he was going to be lonelier than ever. And yet he might be glad of the other's liberty, and if the chance were given, might be the happier for shaking hands with the other and wishing him joy."