fire. The maid-servant knelt down before the
blaze and held up with extended arms one of the habiliments of the Juno
upstairs, from which a cloud of steam began to rise. As she knelt, the
girl nodded forward, recovered herself, and nodded again.

'You are sleepy, my girl,' said Pierston.

'Yes, sir; I have been up a long time. When nobody comes I lie down on
the couch in the other room.'

'Then I'll relieve you of that; go and lie down in the other room, just
as if we were not here. I'll dry the clothing and put the articles here
in a heap, which you can take up to the young lady in the morning.'

The 'night porter' thanked him and left the room, and he soon heard her
snoring from the adjoining apartment. Then Jocelyn opened proceedings,
overhauling the robes and extending them one by one. As the steam went
up he fell into a reverie. He again became conscious of the change
which had been initiated during the walk. The Well-Beloved was moving
house--had gone over to the wearer of this attire.

In the course of ten minutes he adored her.

And how about little Avice Caro? He did not think of her as before.

He was not sure that he had ever seen the real Beloved in that friend of
his youth, solicitous as he was for her welfare. But, loving her or not,
he perceived that the spirit, emanation, idealism, which called itself
his Love was flitting stealthily from some remoter figure to the near
one in the chamber overhead.

Avice had not kept her engagement to meet him in the lonely ruin,
fearing her own imaginings. But he, in fact, more than she, had been
educated out of the island innocence that had upheld old manners; and
this was the strange consequence of Avice's misapprehension.

1. VI. ON THE BRINK

Miss Bencomb was leaving the hotel for the railway, which was quite near
at hand, and had only recently been opened, as if on purpose for this
event. At Jocelyn's suggestion she wrote a message to inform her father
that she had gone to her aunt's, with a view to allaying anxiety and
deterring pursuit. They walked together to the platform and bade each
other good-bye; each obtained a ticket independently, and Jocelyn got
his luggage from the cloak-room.

On the platform they encountered each other again, and there was a light
in their glances at each other which said, as by a flash-telegraph: 'We
are bound for the same town, why not enter the same compartment?'

They did.

She took a corner seat, with her