CHAPTER V.
DESPAIR AND SOLITUDE.
"And back to my own again."
It slipped out involuntarily—I could see that she was glad to leave me.
And so it had ended. As I watched her going down the stairs to her own rooms I knew somehow that all the old feeling had gone.
She did not say so openly, she wanted me to feel that things were just the same, but I knew they were not.
That was on Saturday evening.
On Sunday I thought I would stay in bed late. I had had morning tea and was cuddling up cosily among the blankets with a book when my bell rang.
"Who's there?" I called from the passage.
"Aren't you up yet?" said a voice.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"It's I, Michael Grant. Isn't Mrs. Parker there?"
"No, her rooms are downstairs," I said.
"Oh, I thought she was there," came the answer in the sleepy drawl of a cultured Irish voice.
Naomi came rushing up two minutes later.
"Put on your things, dear, and come down. It's Mick Grant. I want him to meet you. Come and entertain him while I dress. I had to huddle on my things anyway."
I ran down and spent a little time there but I knew they were old friends and I soon made an excuse to get away.
I went down later in the day but I could see that Naomi had quite changed towards me. She seemed to be hiding something from me—there was a wall between us.
I took my conge already in spirit.
It was on St. Patrick's Day, I think, that, looking down at her from my window, I said,
"Come up and have some tea, Naomi."
"I can't," she returned. "I'm going out to lunch. Beatrice Lamb has written to me; such a foolish letter. I've torn it in half."
"I feel inclined to have a good cry," I said, "I believe I'll go to a picture show."
"Go and sit in a church instead," she said.
Friends no longer, and now the Priestess seemed to take my place.
I hesitated now before I ran down as usual to say good-night and sit a few minutes to talk with her.
"I would like to get Alice Griffiths here to talk to Dr.
