"Thank you, Cicely; I'll dine with you with much pleasure. Seven o'clock, isn't it?"
"Yes—here is our station. Hand me those parcels—tenderly, please. What—are you not getting out too?"
"Ah, yes—no—yes! By Jove, I'm too late! Returning by next train!" he shouts.
The carriage door is banged, there is a shrill whistle, and the train is moving smoothly to the next station, Nutsford.
"I—I meant to have got out," he mutters blankly—"of course I did. Hanged if I know what came over me. However, I suppose I had better go on now, after having come so far. Who's afraid? I'll pretty soon let her understand the light I view her distress in, let her know she can't make a cat's-paw of me to get back to respectability, comfort, and position! Who's afraid? Not I!"
Thus plumed with self-confidence, his doughty arm braced to meet Miss Lefroy's hand in the cool platonic grasp of friendship and vague sympathy, Mr. Everard reaches Nutsgrove. There is not a sound of life about the place; the blinds are all down, and old Sally Turner, the erst dignified housekeeper, opens the hall door for him and bids him enter.
"You wish to see Miss Lefroy, sir? Yes, she is at home. To the left, in school-room, sir, she will receive you."
He finds himself standing in a darkened room, and for a few moments, after the glare of unshadowed day, can distinguish nothing; then he sees a tall willowy figure dressed in black advancing toward him. Pauline, pale as a ghost, her starry eyes full of unshed tears, her mouth quivering and uplifted, looking more beautiful in her abashed woe than she looked crowned with diamonds, flushed with triumph, as he saw her last, lays her hand timidly on his shrinking shoulder.
"You have come, my friend, my friend!"