"Are you not with--him?"

"Him? Oh no; he left me years ago. I am alone--very much alone. It
seems sometimes as if I had spent the best part of my life alone. I
am so dull I--I wonder why I dread to die. There! I can follow your
advice so far as this; I'll take the greatest care of myself--in
London. I am glad I came to you, though it does not seem to have
delighted you much. I suppose if--if I had run straight and stayed
with you, I might have been quite well, eh?"

"That is difficult to say. Bella, have you--it is a foolish question,
but--have you ever regretted?"

She laughed recklessly.

"Oh, as to that--what is the good of looking back, anyhow? I have and
I haven't--when I have been sick it has been awful lonesome. You
didn't grieve much, that's certain. And you got your title soon after
I went. It was lucky for you. Scot! I should have been Lady Chetwynd
if I had stopped with you, wouldn't I?"

"You would have been an honest woman."

"Ah!" She rose from her chair and looked curiously round the room. "I
remember those bronzes," she said; "they used to hang in your little
library in the old house. You are a good deal changed in the face;
your manner is just the same. You were always a good fellow, I will
say that. I know it better than I used to now I have had so--since I
have been--"