station, and the train approached. Rosamund having
sprung into a carriage, gave her hand through the window, saying:

"I may be settled in a day or two. You will hear--"

With the sentence unfinished, she drew back, and the train rolled away.
For a minute or two, Warburton stood on the platform, his lips
mechanically prolonging the smile which had answered Miss Elvan's, and
his thoughts echoing her last words. When he turned, he at first walked
slowly; then his pace quickened, and he arrived at the Pomfrets' house,
as though on urgent business. In the garden he caught sight of Ralph,
recovered from his attack of gout, sitting at his ease, pipe in mouth.
Will told of his meeting with Miss Elvan.

"Yes, yes; she's off to London town--wants to live there, like all the
rest of the young people. In thirty years' time she'll have had enough
of it, and be glad to creep into a quiet corner like this. My wife's in
the house, teaching our new maid to make tea-cakes--you shall have some
at five o'clock. I wonder whether any girl could be found nowadays who
knows how to make tea-cakes? There's Rosamund--she knows no more about
that kind of thing than of ship-building. Do you know any young lady
who could make a toothsome tea-cake?"

"I'm not quite sure," answered Will reflectively, "but I have one in
mind who perhaps does--it wouldn't surprise me."

"That's to your credit. By the bye, you know that Norbert has been
here."

"Yes, I heard of it. He wrote to tell me."

"Aye, but he's been twice--did you know that? He was here yesterday."

"Indeed?"

Ralph looked at the other with an odd smile.

"One might have expected a little awkwardness between them," he
continued. "Not a bit of it. There again--your girl of to-day; she has
a way of her own with all this kind of thing. Why they just shook hands
as if they'd never been anything but pleasant friends. All the same, as
I tell you, Norbert has been a second time."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Warburton.

Will had purposed getting back to the shop about seven o'clock. He was,
indeed, back in London at that hour, but his state of mind tempted him
to shirk squalid duty; instead of turning toward Fulham Road, he took
his way into the Strand, and there loitered in the evening sunshine,
self-reproachful, yet enjoying the unwonted liberty. It was
dinner-time; restaurants exhaled their pungent odours, and Will felt
sharpening appetite. For the first time since his catastrophe, he