tter necessitating their departure for town on Monday
night. But this fact should not have condemned her to a solitary
evening, Ella reflected. She should have been thoughtful enough to
change her own plans to correspond with the change in the plans of her
guests. A nice, quiet, contemplative evening beside the still waters
may suit the requirements of some temperaments, but it was not just what
Ella regarded as most satisfying to her mood of the hour. It was a long
time since she had spent a lonely evening, and although she had now
rather more food for contemplation than at any other period of her life,
she did not feel contemplative.

Then it suddenly occurred to her to ask herself why, after all, should
she be condemned to a contemplative evening? What was there to hinder
her taking a train to town after she had dined? Once in town she knew
that all prospect of contemplation would be at an end.

She rang her bell and told her maid that she had changed her mind in
regard to staying another night at The Mooring; she would leave after
dinner; wasn't there a train about nine from Maidenhead?

It was when she was about to go down to dinner that she heard the sound
of wheels upon the gravel walk. Was it possible that her newly made
plans might also be deranged? Was this a fresh visitor arriving by a fly
from Maidenhead--she saw that the vehicle was a fly.

There was no one in the room to hear the cry of delight that she gave
when she saw Herbert at the porch of the house, the driver having
deposited his portmanteau and Gladstone bag at his feet.

He had returned to her--he, whom she fancied to be far away; he who had
forsaken her, as she thought, as she feared, as she (at times) hoped,
forever. He had returned to her. There was no one now to stand between
them. He was all her own.

She flung off the dress which she was wearing,--it was her plainest
evening gown,--and had actually got on another, a lovely one that she
had never yet worn, before her maid arrived at her dressing room.

"Louise," she said, "send a message downstairs to show Mr. Courtland to
his room, and mention that he will dine with me. Come back at once. I
have got so far in my dressing without you; I can't go much further,
however."

In a quarter of an hour she was surveying herself in her mirror just
as Phyllis had been doing an hour sooner; only on her face was a very
different expression from that which Phyllis had worn. Her eyes were
brilliant