The hands were warm now, and Lucy rose.
"You have done me good, Lucy," said Mr. Arkell, as she was putting on her gloves to leave; "good in all ways. A bright face and a cheering manner! my dear, in sickness, they are worth their weight in gold."
Making the best of her way home, she found Travice alone. Henry was upstairs with his mother, uncording boxes.
"What a time you have been, Lucy!" was the salutation; for it had seemed very long to him.
"Have I? I did not once sit down. Mr. Arkell says I look well after my sojourn, but I told him he should see mamma."
"So he should. But I must be going, Lucy. Do you look well?"
He took both her hands in his, and stood before her, his face a little bent, regarding her intently. Lucy blushed violently under the gaze. Suddenly, without any warning, his lips were on hers; and he took the first kiss that he had taken from Lucy since her childhood.
"Don't be angry with me, Lucy! Think it a cousin's kiss, if you will."
As he went out, the large shadow of a large, gaily-dressed woman, passing between him and the setting sun, was cast upon Travice Arkell. The shadow of Barbara Fauntleroy. If he could but have foreseen the type it was of the terrible shadow that was to fall upon him in the future!