'We shall quite miss him.' 'Yes, I have no doubt we shall miss him,' said Lesbia, again without the faintest emotion.
The governess began to think that the ordeal of an agreeable young man's presence at Fellside had been passed in safety, and that her pupil was unscathed.

She had kept a close watch on the two, as in duty bound.

She knew that Hammond was in love with Lesbia; but she thought Lesbia was heart-whole.
Mr.Hammond came back with a shabby little book in his hand and established himself comfortably in one of the two Beaconsfield chairs.
He opened his book at that group of short poems called Heimkehr, and read here and there, as fancy led him.

Sometimes the strain was a love-song, brief, passionate as the cry of a soul in pain; sometimes the verses were bitter and cynical; sometimes full of tenderest simplicity, telling of childhood, and youth and purity; sometimes dark with hidden meanings, grim, awful, cold with the chilling breath of the charnel-house.

Sometimes Lesbia's heart beat a little faster as Mr.
Hammond read, for it seemed as if it was he who was speaking to her, and not the dead poet.
An hour or more passed in this way.