ointment was made for another
meeting. But the talk had turned on Milly herself, and Milly's hopes and
prospects, before that short half-hour had sped.

"Good-night, Milly," said Sydney, as they left the station. "You are a
dear little girl to tell me so much. Perhaps you had better not say to
your mistress that you saw me to-night. I shall call to-morrow
afternoon. Good-night, dear."

He kissed her lightly, in a shadowy corner of the platform, before he
turned away; and thought rather admiringly for a minute or two of the
half-frightened, half-adoring eyes that were riveted upon his face.
"Poor little fool!" he said to himself, as he signalled a cab. For even
in that one short interview he had mastered the fact that Milly was
rather fool than knave.

The girl went home with a light heart, believing that she had done a
service to the mistress whom she really loved, and shyly, timorously
joyous at the thought that she had met at last with an admirer--a lover,
perhaps!--such as her heart desired. Of course, Miss Lettice would be
angry if she knew; but there was nothing wrong in Mr. Sydney's
admiration, said Milly, lifting high her little round white chin; and if
he told her to keep silence she was bound to hold her tongue.

This was a mean thing that Sydney had done, and he was not so hardened
as to have done it without a blush. Yet so admirably does our veneer of
civilization conceal the knots and flaws beneath it that he went to
sleep in the genuine belief that he had saved his sister from a terrible
danger, and the name of Campion from the degradation which threatened
it.

On the next day he reached Maple Cottage between four and five o'clock.

"How is your mistress?" he said to Milly.

She had opened the door and let him in with a vivid blush and smile,
which made him for a moment, and in the broad light of day, feel
somewhat ashamed of himself.

"Oh, sir, she is no better. She has locked herself in, and I heard her
sobbing, fit to break her heart," said Milly, in real concern for her
mistress' untold grief.

"Let her know that I am here. I will go to Mrs. Campion's room."

"Well, mother!" he said, in the hearty, jovial voice in which he knew
that she liked best to be accosted, "here is your absentee boy again.
How are you by this time?"

"Not very bright to-day, Sydney," said his mother. "I never am very
bright now-a-days. But what are you doing, my dear? Are you getting on
well? Have they----"

"No,