more desolate even than she did when she fled from England? Return to Madame Martineau's? Take up the old superficial life again, with Morin and Doucet and Madame de Belcour? She had borne with it six months ago. There was a time when, perhaps, it had even amused her; but now, with a sore heart—no, she could not go back. He would never go; of that she felt very sure. He had always hated the pension. It was only for Hatty's sake, to whom it offered more comforts than she could have had in a lodging, that he had endured it for so many months. And now the poor solitary fellow would go and live, up au cinquiéme, somewhere in the Quartier Latin, and dine at dreadful restaurants, and, shunning the rowdy lot about him, pass friendless evenings!
Perhaps, for the first time, she fully, frankly realized the place that Alaric Baring had got to fill in her life. Had she not been startled by the conviction that a crisis was at hand, things might have slid on some time longer in the tranquil routine of daily existence without this self-examination. For some weeks past she had known that his influence was growing stronger and stronger; she had known that her feeling for him was altogether different and apart from that with which she regarded all other men; but she had not seen clearly, as she now did, that if they were to be parted for ever, life would never be the same to her again. The secret should die with her, unguessed by any one, unless he came to her with some like acknowledgment. Ah! would he ever come?
Her heart, in the golden silence, had gone down to the
