A cold frosty air in the streets that night—a chilling welcome to Harriet Wesden as she emerged from the hot room into Tenchester Street. Sidney was waiting for her, staid, silent, and statuesque; he offered her his arm, which she took, and together they proceeded along the narrow street into the Southwark Bridge Road—thence past the old house in Great Suffolk Street towards the Borough.

Harriet Wesden felt that she would have given worlds, had she possessed them, to have broken the silence, and ventured on some topic which might have tested the truth or the folly of her fears; but all thought seemed to have deserted her.

These sudden vacuums are difficult things to account for—most of us suffer from them more or less at some period or other of our lives. Who cannot remember the sudden hiatus with the friend—male or female—whom we intended particularly to impress with the force of our eloquence; or the collapse in the grand speech with which we wished to return thanks for the handsome manner in which our health had been drunk at that dinner party, or the vote of confidence placed in us at that extraordinary general meeting?

Harriet Wesden was dumb; there was not one thought at which she could clutch, even the coldness of that night did not suggest itself till it was too late to speak, and the idea began to impress her that it would be more unnatural to say a few commonplace words than to keep silence.

She guessed that Sidney knew her secret, or the greater part of her secret, the instant that she had emerged into the street; and to attempt a commonplace discourse with a great sorrow overshadowing him would, after all, have been a mockery, unworthy of herself and him.

But if he would only speak!—not proceed onwards so firmly, steadily saying, never a word to relieve the embarrassment of her position. Sidney Hinchford maintained a rigid silence for almost a similar reason to Harriet's; he was at loss how to begin, and break the spell which had enchained him since his engagement. He was walking in darkness, and there was no light ahead of him. All was vanity and vexation of spirit.

At last the silence was broken. They had left behind them the long rows of lighted shops, and come to private houses, and long dreary front gardens, with interminable rows of iron railings; there were a few late office-clerks—a shadowy woman or two—hastening homewards; the roar of London was growing fainter in the distance.

"Harriet," he began, in a deep voice, wherein all excitement was pent up and constrained, "I have heard a strange story to-night from that man claiming to be Mattie's father—is it true?"

"Yes."

She did not ask what he had heard, or attempt any defence; the sound of his voice, deep and resonant after the long silence, had set her heart beating, and rendered her answer a matter of difficulty.

"It is a strange story, and I have been hoping it might have been explained away by some means not only unnatural—I can almost believe that it is all a dream, and no cruel waking is to follow it. Harriet, may I ask if your father is aware of this?"

"He is not yet."

"You were travelling alone with a gentleman—I will call him a gentleman for the sake of argument—in the middle of the night by the Dover mail train; at Ashford you leave the carriage abruptly, and demand protection from him—speak of a trap into which he had led you, and seek counsel of that man we met at Mattie's house to-night?"

"But——"

"But do not misunderstand me, Harriet—I can read the story for myself; I can see that you were deceived in this man, and had no consciousness of the snare prepared for you, until the hour was too late. I can believe that your sense of right was outraged, and the gentleman merited all the scorn which he received—but who was this man to whom you could trust yourself at that hour, and by what right were you, under any circumstances, his companion?"

"He was a man I met at Mrs. Eveleigh's—he offered to escort me to the railway station."

"A stranger?"

"No—I had met him at Brighton, before then, when I was a school-girl. He—he paid me attentions there which flattered my girlish vanity; and—and then I met him again at Mrs. Eveleigh's."

"What is his name?"

"Darcy."

"You have not seen him since?"

"No—I hope that he and I will never meet again."

"Harriet, you loved this man!"

"No," was the fearless answer; "I cannot believe that now. I might have fancied so at the time—for oh! I was bewildered by many thoughts, and my heart was troubled, Sid—but I never loved him, on my honour!"

"It is easy to think that now," said Sidney in reply; "the idol has fallen from the pedestal, never to be replaced again—a ruin, in which no interest remains. But you loved him, or believed you loved him at that time—it is a nice distinction—and there was no thought of me and my hopes."

"Sidney, I wrote—I—"

"Harriet, there is no need for us to say one word in anger about this," he interrupted; "I will ask no further explanation—I do not wish it. I can see now where I have been wrong, and whither my folly was leading me—and there's an end of it," he added.

"An end of—what?"

"Of the one hope that I have had. I see, now, how much better it is for you and me, and what a foolish couple we have been."

There was a long silence; they had walked on some distance before Harriet said, suddenly and sharply—

"What do you mean—what am I to understand?"

"That our engagement is at an end, and that it is better for us both to forget the romantic nonsense which we talked of lately. I will not ask you to forget me; I will not try for a single moment to forget you. I will prefer, if you will allow me, Harriet, to remain your friend—something of the old boy-friend I was to you, before the dream came."

"Unjust—unkind!" she murmured.

"No, you will not think that presently," he answered; "you will judge me more fairly, and see for yourself how it could not have ended otherwise for either of us. You have been more than kind to me—you have offered me the sacrifice of your best wishes, even your brightest prospects, out of pity, and I cannot have it."

"Pity!" she repeated.

Harriet was unnerved at his earnestness, at the deep sorrow which betrayed itself in every word, and which he thought that he disguised so well; but her pride was wounded also at his resignation of her, and she could see that there was no defence to urge which, by the laws of probability, had power to affect him. Between her and him that cruel past, which she had hidden from him; that proof of love or fancy for another, when he was building on her lore for him; that evidence against her, which for ever robbed him of his confidence and trust. No, there was no defence, and the scornful echo of his last words were more like defiance than regret.

"Yes, pity!" he reiterated—"only pity! Harriet," he said, for an instant pressing her hand upon his arm with the old affection, "it was kind and noble of you, but it was not love. It was a sacrifice; I was a poor man; there was a great affliction in store for me, and you felt that you alone could lighten it in the present—and in the future, when it faced me and shut me in with it. You saw that you were my one hope, and you took pity on me. It was a mistake—I see the gigantic error that it was now!"

"You will see the truth—you will judge me fairer yet, Sidney."

"This past engagement between us, Harriet, has been a trouble to me lately," he continued; "my selfishness has scared me before this, and I have felt that I had no right to bind you to me for a term of years, ending in calamity at the last. I was wrong—I retract—I am very sorry for the error—I am glad of this excuse to rectify it."

"You say that!" cried Harriet; "you are glad to break with me—to believe that I did not love you, Sidney?"

"Yes, I am glad. I can see that it was all for the best; and though I could have wished that there had been a different reason for the parting, still it takes a weight from my conscience—it is a relief!"

It was a struggle to say so, but he said it without bitterness, and in good faith. By some ingenious method of word-twisting, which Harriet could not follow, he had stopped all effort to explain more fully, and turned the blame of the engagement on himself. There was no answering; she saw that his heart was wrung with the agony of the dissolution, but she read upon that pale, stern face, to which she glanced but once, an inflexible resolve, that nothing could alter. He upbraided her not; he uttered not one sarcasm upon the folly of her past passion for Mr. Darcy, or the mistakes to which it had led; he expressed a wish to be her friend still, but he gave her up, and with all her love for him—and she knew how truly it was love then—she could not ask him to reconsider his verdict and spare her a parting as bitter for her as him. She read in that hasty glance at his face, incredulity of her affection for him; and no protestation on her part could have altered that. Yes, it was ended between them—perhaps for the best, God knew; she could not think of it then—she was ashamed, miserable, utterly cast down!

"Let me get home," she murmured; "what a long way it is to home."

"I will say no more, Harriet—I have been unkind to say so much," he said, in answer to that cry, in which he might have read the truth, had not his heart been for ever closed to it from that night.

So, in the same silent way as they had begun that inauspicious walk, the two concluded it, reaching the little house of Mr. Wesden shortly afterwards. Colder and more grim the night there; beyond the lighted London streets, in melancholy suburban districts like to this, there seemed to lurk a greater desolation.

"Good night," he said; "don't think that we part in anger, or that I am hurt in any way at what has happened—or that I am less your friend than ever, Harriet."

"Good night," was all her answer.

He lingered still, as though he had more to say, or was endeavouring to think of something more to render the disruption less abrupt and harsh; but he relinquished the attempt, and left her, walking away rapidly as though at the last—the very last—he feared to trust himself.

He did not go straight home, but walked for awhile up and down the street wherein his home was, at the same rapid pace, with his breath held somewhat, and his hands clenched.

He had acted for the best—it was for the best, he thought!—but the result was not satisfactory, and the future beyond was the grey density at which he had recoiled, when crossing the Channel on the day he came to man's estate.

If he had died on that day, or the ship had gone down with him, how much better he thought then; better for her, for him—even for his father, perhaps, he could not tell at that time!

He went indoors at last, feigned for awhile the old demeanour, and failed at a task beyond his strength for once. He gave it up, and, looking vacantly at his amazed father, said,

"I'm not well to-night. I think I'll go to my room."

"Not well!—you not well, Sid?" exclaimed the father, as though the assertion were the most improbable to make in the world.

"Not very well—a head-ache."

"Ah! too much book-work. Be careful, Sid, don't overtask yourself."

"I shall be well enough to-morrow. Good night."

He left the room abruptly, and turned the key in his own apartment a few minutes afterwards. In his own room, he hunted for a few letters which she had written to him during their brief engagement, and proceeded to burn them in the empty fire-grate.

"So much the best," he muttered, "so much the best!" as though they were charmed words, that kept him strong.

He missed something else, and was uneasy about it. He went to the looking-glass drawer, and turned out the whole contents upon the toilet-table—staring at a letter soiled, crumpled and torn, but still sealed, which rewarded his search, and lay at the bottom.

"What's this?" he muttered.

He drew a chair nearer the drawers on which the light was placed, examined the post-mark, the superscription, the seal, then opened the letter, dated on the day he went away on special service.

A long, confused epistle, written with difficulty and under much agitation, but telling one truth, at which he had guessed—which he had spoken of that night.

"I knew it before!" he cried; but the news daunted him, and unmanned him notwithstanding.

It was the climax, and he gave way utterly.