When the train stopped at Wendover station, he again found himself to be the only passenger who alighted. As he breathed the pure, balmy air, and saw the countryside beginning to clothe itself in its mantle of living green, it seemed to him that new life, new energy, entered his being. After all, it was good to be alive.
Half an hour later he was nearing the park gates—not those which he had entered on his first visit, but those near which Hugh Stanmore's cottage was situated. He had taken this road without thinking. Well, it did not matter.
As he saw the cottage nestling among the trees, he felt his heart beating wildly. He wondered if Beatrice was at home, wondered—a thousand things. He longed to call and make inquiries, but of course he would not. He would enter the park gates unseen, and make his way to the great house.
But he did not pass the cottage gate. Before he could do so the door opened, and Beatrice appeared. Evidently she had seen him coming, for she ran down the steps with outstretched hand.
"I felt sure it was you," she said, "and—but you look pale—ill; are you?"
"I'm ever so much better, thank you," he replied. "So much so that I could not refrain from coming to see Wendover again."
"But you must come in and rest," she cried anxiously. "I insist on it. Why did you not tell us you were ill?"
Before he could reply he found himself within the cottage.