"No, no," she interposed hastily, "not before I am out of my room. I shall be down to breakfast with Marian. I am not so ungrateful, not so forgetful of the past three months——"
Her voice failed her, her hand closed gently round mine—then dropped it suddenly. Before I could say "Good-night" she was gone.
The end comes fast to meet me—comes inevitably, as the light of the last morning came at Limmeridge House.
It was barely half-past seven when I went downstairs, but I found them both at the breakfast-table waiting for me. In the chill air, in the dim light, in the gloomy morning silence of the house, we three sat down together, and tried to eat, tried to talk. The struggle to preserve appearances was hopeless and useless, and I rose to end it.
As I held out my hand, as Miss Halcombe, w
