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 at having spoken thus; but somehow he had been forced into speech.

“Do sit down,” said Mary suddenly. “You make me so” She spoke with unusual irritability, and Ralph, noticing it with surprise, sat down at once.

“You haven’t told me her name—you’d rather not, I suppose?”

“Her name? Katharine Hilbery.”

“But she’s engaged.”

“To Rodney. They’re to be married in September.”

“I see,” said Mary. But in truth the calm of his manner, now that he was sitting down once more, wrapt her in the presence of something which she felt to be so strong, so mysterious, so incalculable, that she scarcely dared to attempt to intercept it by any word or question that she was able to frame. She looked at Ralph blankly, with a kind of awe in her face, her lips slightly parted, and her brows raised. He was apparently quite unconscious of her gaze. Then, as if she could look no longer, she leant back in her chair, and half closed her eyes. The distance between them hurt her terribly; one thing after another came into her mind, tempting her to assail Ralph with questions, to force him to confide in her, and to enjoy once more his intimacy. But she rejected every impulse, for she could not speak without doing violence to some reserve which had grown between them, putting them a little far from each other, so that he seemed to her dignified and remote, like a person she no longer knew well.

“Is there anything that I could do for you?” she asked gently, and even with courtesy, at length.

“You could see her—no, that’s not what I want; you mustn’t bother about me, Mary.” He, too, spoke very gently.

“I'm afraid no third person can do anything to help,” she added.

“No,” he shook his head. “Katharine was saying to-