X---? You--you might see Dr. Howson?'

'Howson?' he said, surprised. 'Do you know him? Yes, I shall certainly
see Howson. He's now the principal surgeon at one of the General
Hospitals there, where I specially want to look at some new splints
they've been trying.'

Nelly moved on without speaking for a little. At last she said, almost
inaudibly--

'He promised me--to make enquiries.'

'Did he?' Farrell spoke in the grave, deep voice he seemed to keep for
her alone, which was always sweet to her ear. 'And he has never
written?' She shook her head. 'But he would have written--instantly--you
may be quite sure, if there had been the slightest clue.'

'Oh yes, I know, I know,' she said hastily.

'Give me any message for him you like--or any questions you'd like me to
ask.'

'Yes'--she said, vaguely.

It seemed to him she was walking languidly, and he was struck by her
weary look. The afternoon had turned windy and cold with gusts of rain.
But when he suggested an immediate return to the cottage, Nelly would
have none of it.

'We were to meet Captain Marsworth and Miss Stewart. Where are they?'

They emerged at the moment from the cottage grounds, upon the high road;
Farrell pointed ahead, and Nelly saw Marsworth and Miss Stewart walking
fast up the hill before them, and evidently in close conversation.

'What can they have to talk about?' said Nelly, wondering.

'Wouldn't you like to know!'

'You're not going to tell me?'

'Not a word.'

His eyes laughed at her. They walked on beside each other, strangely
content. And yet, with what undercurrents of sensitive and wounded
consciousness on her side, of anxiety on his!

At the top of Red Bank they came up with Marsworth and Miss Stewart.
Nelly's curiosity was more piqued than ever. If all that Marsworth had
said to her was true, why this evident though suppressed agitation on
the girl's part, and these shades of mystery in the air? Daisy Stewart
was what anybody would have called 'a pretty little thing.' She was
small, round-cheeked, round-eyed, round-limbed; light upon her feet;
shewing a mass of brown hair brushed with gold under her hat, and the
fresh complexion of a mountain maid. Nelly guessed her age about three
and twenty, and could not help keenly watching the meeting between her
and Cicely. She saw Cicely hold out a limp hand, and the girl's timid,
almost entreating eyes.

But, the next moment, her attention was diverted to a figure slowly
mount