Rupert had not said exactly when she was to expect him, and she sat for a long time by the fire, starting at every sound and imagining at every moment that she heard the front-door bell ring.
“I shall not let him feel himself bound,” she said to herself with great decision. “I shall tell him I hope we shall always be friends but that's all; and if he wants anything more, I shall say No. But most likely he won't say a word about all that nonsense, it would be silly to take seriously what he said—there.”
To Ella, now, Bittermeads was always “there,” and though she told herself several times that probably Rupert had not the least idea of repeating what he had said to her—there—and that most likely he was coming today merely to make a friendly call, and that it would never do for either of them to think again of what they had said when they were both so excited and overwrought, yet in her heart she knew a great deal better than all that.
But she said to herself very often:
“Anyhow, I shall certainly refuse him.”
And on this point her mind was irrevocably made up since, after all, whether Rupert would accept refusal or not would still remain entirely for him to decide.
At half-past three she heard the garden-gate creak, and when she ran to the window to peep, she saw with a kind of chill surprise that there was a stranger coming through.
“Some one he's sent,” she said to herself. “He doesn't want to come himself and so he has sent some one else instead. I am glad.”
Having said this and repeated again the last three words, and having gulped down a sob—presumably of joy—that unexpectedly fluttered into her throat, she went quickly to open the door.
The newly-arrived stranger smiled at her as she showed herself but did not speak. He was a man of middle height, quite young, and wrapped in a big, loose overcoat that very completely hid his figure. His face, clean-shaven, showed clear, strongly-marked well-shaped features with a firm mouth round which at this moment played a very gentle and winning smile, a square-cut chin, and extremely bright, clear kindly eyes that were just now smiling too.