Mr. Whiston shrank from society, ceaselessly afraid of receiving less than his due; privately, meanwhile, he deplored the narrowness of the social opportunities granted to his daughter, and was for ever forming schemes for her advantage—­schemes which never passed beyond the stage of nervous speculation.  They inhabited a little house in a western suburb, a house illumined with every domestic virtue; but scarcely a dozen persons crossed the threshold within a twelvemonth.  Rose’s two or three friends were, like herself, mistrustful of the world.  One of them had lately married after a very long engagement, and Rose still trembled from the excitement of that occasion, still debated fearfully with herself on the bride’s chances of happiness.  Her own marriage was an event so inconceivable that merely to glance at the thought appeared half immodest and wholly irrational.

Every winter Mr. Whiston talked of new places which he and Rose would visit when the holidays came round; every summer he shrank from the thought of adventurous novelty, and ended by proposing a return to the same western seaside-town, to the familiar lodgings.  The climate suited neither him nor his daughter, who both needed physical as well as moral bracing; but they only thought of this on finding themselves at home again, with another long year of monotony before them.  And it was so good to feel welcome, respected; to receive the smiling reverences of tradesfolk; to talk with just a little well-bred condescension, sure that it would be appreciated.  Mr. Whiston savoured these things, and Rose in this respect was not wholly unlike him.

To-day was the last of their vacation.  The weather had been magnificent throughout; Rose’s cheeks were more than touched by the sun, greatly to the advantage of her unpretending comeliness.  She was a typical English maiden, rather tall, shapely rather than graceful, her head generally bent, her movements always betraying the diffidence of solitary habit.  The lips were her finest feature, their perfect outline indicating sweetness without feebleness of character.  Such a girl is at her best towards the stroke of thirty.  Rose had begun to know herself; she needed only opportunity to act upon her knowledge.

A train would take them back to the seaside.  At the railway station Rose seated herself on a shaded part of the platform, whilst her father, who was exceedingly short of sight, peered over publications on the bookstall.  Rather tired after her walk, the girl was dreamily tracing a pattern with the point of her parasol, when some one advanced and stood immediately in front of her.  Startled, she looked up, and recognised the red-haired stranger of the inn.

’You left these flowers in a glass of water on the table.  I hope I’m not doing a rude thing in asking whether they were left by accident.’

He had the flowers in his hand, their stems carefully protected by a piece of paper.  For a moment Rose was incapable of replying; she looked at the speaker; she felt her cheeks burn; in utter embarrassment she said she knew not what.