Then at last he appeared one evening at Mrs.Lee's at the very moment when Sybil, as chance would have it, was going out to pass an hour or two with her friend Victoria Dare a few doors away.
Carrington felt a little ashamed as she went.

This kind of conspiracy behind Mrs.Lee's back was not to his taste.
He resolutely sat down, and plunged at once into his subject.

He was almost ready to go, he said; he had nearly completed his work in the Department, and he was assured that his instructions and papers would be ready in two days more; he might not have another chance to see Mrs.Lee so quietly again, and he wanted to take his leave now, for this was what lay most heavily on his mind; he should have gone willingly and gladly if it had not been for uneasiness about her; and yet he had till now been afraid to speak openly on the subject.

Here he paused for a moment as though to invite some reply.
Madeleine laid down her work with a look of regret though not of annoyance, and said frankly and instantly that he had been too good a friend to allow of her taking offence at anything he could say; she would not pretend to misunderstand him.

"My affairs," she added with a shade of bitterness, "seem to have become public property, and I would rather have some voice in discussing them myself than to know they are discussed behind my back." This was a sharp thrust at the very outset, but Carrington turned it aside and went quietly on: "You are frank and loyal, as you always are.