"Surely," Helen exclaimed, "I have seen that face before! Yet how can it be?"
Randolph knew right well, but he was silent.
"Do you know those ladies, Mrs. Winter?" Helen asked.
"No, Miss Morton. It is really a beautiful girl."
"Beautiful!" Randolph thought; "beautiful! Ay, she is more than beautiful."
And the presentiment he had felt before came gloomily back upon his heart.
But the fair stranger was not the only damsel who attracted admiration in the opera-house that night.
"Who is that, Melcomb?" asked a portly, good-humoured personage, leaning on the rail of the orchestra, and looking towards Mrs. Winter's box. "A new face, is it not?"
"The girl with the bird of paradise in her hair?" answered Melcomb. "Fie! Winesour. Have you forgotten Cressy?—Though, to be sure, the gentle Cressida may have a new face to-night, or any night."
"Pooh! you know who I mean," Winesour persisted; "in the tier below."