in till a pure hero
should come to release her. A nervous smile curled her lip for a moment;
she trembled in her very entrails, and as they passed down the long,
mean streets of Camberwell her thoughts frittered out in all sorts of
trivial observation and reflection. She wondered if the mother who
called down the narrow alley had ever been in love, if she had ever
deceived her husband, if her father had reproved her about the young man
she kept company with. The milkman presented to her strained mind some
sort of problem, and the sight of the railway embankment told her she
was nearing Dulwich. Then she saw the cedar at the top of the hill,
whither she had once walked to meet Owen. ... Now it was London nearly
all the way to Dulwich.

But when they entered the familiar village street she was surprised at
her dislike of it; even the chestnut trees, beautiful with white bloom,
were distasteful to her, and life seemed contemptible beneath them. In
Dulwich there was no surprise--life there was a sheeted phantom, it
evoked a hundred dead Evelyns, and she felt she would rather live in any
ghostly graveyard than in Dulwich. Her very knowledge of the place was
an irritation to her, and she was pleased when she saw a house which had
been built since she had been away. But every one of the fields she knew
well, and the sight of every tree recalled a dead day, a dead event.
That road to the right led to the picture gallery, and at the cross road
she had been nearly run over by a waggon while trundling a hoop. But
eyesight hardly helped her in Dulwich; she had only to think, to see it.
The slates of a certain house told her that another minute would bring
her to her father's door, and before the carriage turned the corner she
foresaw the patch of black garden. But if her father were at home he
might refuse to see her, and she was not certain if she should force her
way past the servant or return home quietly. The entire dialogue of the
scene between her and Margaret passed through her mind, and the very
intonation of their voices. But it was not Margaret who opened the door
to her.

"This way, miss, please."

"No, I'll wait in the music-room."

"Mr. Innes won't have no one wait there in his absence. Will you come
into the parlour?"

"No, I think I'll wait in the music-room. I'm Miss Innes; Mr. Innes is
my father."

"What, miss, are you the great singer?"

"I suppose I am."

"Do you know, miss, something told me that you