when her presence, if
she proved good-looking, could not in any way interfere with her
stepsister's debut.

And here, instead of being overcome with gratitude and excitement, this
cold, quiet girl was taking it all as quite an ordinary circumstance. No
wonder she, Louisa Anderton, felt aggrieved.

They had hardly time for any more words, for Mrs. Anderton had already
put off her departure by the seven-twenty train from Applewood to
Upminster on purpose to wait for Halcyone, and now proposed to catch the
one at nine o'clock--her fly still waited in the courtyard--and they
made rapid arrangements. Halcyone, accompanied by Priscilla, was to meet
her the next day at the Upminster junction at eleven o'clock, and they
would journey to London together.

And all the while Halcyone was agreeing to this she was thinking, if in
the improbable circumstance that she should get no letter in the
morning, it would be wiser to go to London. There was her Cheiron, who
would help her to get news. But of course she would hear, and all would
be well.

Thus she was enabled to unfreeze a little to her stepfather's wife, who,
as they said good-by at the creaking fly's door, felt some of her soft
charm.

"Perhaps she is shy," she said to herself as she rolled towards the
station. "Anyway, it is restful, after Mabel's laying down the law."

That night Halcyone took her goddess to the little summer house upon the
second terrace.

"If I start with John to-morrow, my sweet," she said, "you will come
with me as I have promised you. But if I must go to that great, restless
city, to find him, then you will wait for me here--safe in your secret
home." And then she looked out over the misty clover-grown pleasance to
the country beyond bathed in brilliant moonlight. And something in the
beauty of it stilled the wild ache in her heart. She would not admit
into her thoughts the least fear, but some unexplained, unconquerable
apprehension stayed in her innermost soul. She knew, only she refused to
face the fact, that all was not well.

Of doubt as to John Derringham's intentions towards her, or his love,
she had none, but there were forces she knew which were strong and could
injure people, and with all her fearlessness of them, they might have
been capable of causing some trouble to her lover--her lover who was
ignorant of such things.

She stayed some time looking at the beautiful moonlit country, and
saying her prayers to that God Who was he