is alone, quite.'

He rose. The girl's eyes fixed themselves on him again, and she said:

'You look dreadfully tired.'

'I have not slept, I think, since I left Thun.'

'You left them all well?' Beatrice asked, with a change in her voice,
from anxious interest which would have veiled itself, to the tone of one
discharging a formal politeness.

Wilfrid replied with a brief affirmative, and they ascended the stairs
together to a large and rather dim drawing-room, with a scent of earth
and vegetation arising from the great number of growing plants arranged
about it. Beatrice presented her friend to Mrs. Baxendale, and at once
withdrew.

The lady with whom Wilfrid found himself talking was tall and finely
made, not very graceful in her bearing, and with a large face, the
singular kindness of which speedily overcame the first sense of
dissatisfaction at its plainness. She wore a little cap of lace, and
from her matronly costume breathed a pleasant freshness, akin to the
activity of her flame. Having taken the young man's hand at greeting,
she held it in both her own, and with large, grey eyes examined his face
shrewdly. Yet neither the action nor the gaze was embarrassing to
Wilfrid he felt, on the contrary, something wonderfully soothing in the
pressure of the warm, firm hands, and in her look an invitation to the
repose of confidence which was new in his experience of women--an
experience not extensive, by the bye, though his characteristic
generalisations seemed to claim the opposite. He submitted from the
first moment to an influence maternal in its spirit, an influence which
his life had lacked, and which can perhaps only be fully appreciated
either in mature reflection upon a past made sacred by death, or on a
meeting such as this, when the heart is open to the helpfulness of
disinterested sympathy. Mrs. Baxendale's countenance was grave enough to
suit the sad thoughts with which she sought to commune, yet showed an
under-smile, suggesting the consolation held in store by one much at
home in the world's sorrows. As she smiled, each of her cheeks dimpled
softly, and Wilfrid could not help noticing the marvellous purity of her
complexion, as well as the excellent white teeth just visible between
her lips.

'So you have come all the way from Switzerland,' she said, leading him
to a chair, and seating herself by him. Her voice had a touch of
masculine quality, even as her shape and features, but it chained
attent