She got up, and for a moment or two the two young women stood together not far from the bow window of Katty's bedroom.
Suddenly Katty exclaimed, "Why, there's Oliver Tropenell! What an extraordinary thing! I thought he was abroad."
"He came back yesterday morning," said Laura quietly.
Katty gave her visitor a quick, searching look. But there was never anything to see in Laura's face.
"Hadn't I better call out to him? He's evidently on his way to The Chase. Hadn't I better say you're here?"
And, as Laura seemed to hesitate, she threw open the window. "Mr. Tropenell?" she called out, in her clear, ringing voice.
The man who was striding past Rosedean, walking very quickly, stopped rather unwillingly. Then he looked up, and when he saw who it was that was standing by Mrs. Winslow, he turned in through the gate, and rang the door-bell.
"Will you go down to him, Laura? I can't come as I am."
"I'll wait while you put on your dress. We can tell him to go out into the garden with Alice."
She bent over the broad, low bar of the window, and Oliver, gazing up at her, thought of Rossetti's lines: Heaven to him was where Laura was.