In a minute he was by her side.  She was caught, and perhaps she was not altogether sorry, especially as she had tried to get away.

“Who is it? what’s the matter?” said the Colonel, lighting a fusee under her eyes.  It was one of those flaming fusees, and burnt with a blue light, showing Ida’s tall figure and beautiful face, all stained with grief and tears, showing her wet macintosh, and the gate-post against which she had been leaning—­showing everything.

“Why, Ida,” he said in amaze, “what are you doing here, crying too?”

“I’m not crying,” she said, with a sob; “it’s the rain that has made my face wet.”

Just then the light burnt out and he dropped it.

“What is it, dear, what is it?” he said in great distress, for the sight of her alone in the wet and dark, and in tears, moved him beyond himself.  Indeed he would have been no man if it had not.

She tried to answer, but she could not, and in another minute, to tell the honest truth, she had exchanged the gate-post for Harold’s broad shoulder, and was finishing her “cry” there.

Now to see a young and pretty woman weeping (more especially if she happens to be weeping on your shoulder) is a very trying thing.  It is trying even if you do not happen to be in love with her at all.  But if you are in love with her, however little, it is dreadful; whereas, if, as in the present case, you happen to worship her, more, perhaps, than it is good to worship any fallible human creature, then the sight is positively overpowering.  And so, indeed, it proved in the present instance.  The Colonel could not bear it, but lifting her head from his shoulder, he kissed her sweet face again and again.

“What is it, darling?” he said, “what is the matter?”

“Leave go of me and I will tell you,” she answered.

He obeyed, though with some unwillingness.

She hunted for her handkerchief and wiped her eyes, and then at last she spoke: 

“I am engaged to be married,” she said in a low voice, “I am engaged to Mr. Cossey.”

Then, for about the first time in his life, Harold Quaritch swore violently in the presence of a lady.

“Oh, damn it all!” he said.

She took no notice of the strength of the language, perhaps indeed she re-echoed it in some feminine equivalent.

“It is true,” she said with a sigh.  “I knew that it would come, those dreadful things always do—­and it was not my fault—­I am sure you will always remember that.  I had to do it—­he advanced the money on the express condition, and even if I could pay back the money, I suppose that I should be bound to carry out the bargain.  It is not the money which he wants but his bond.”

“Curse him for a Shylock,” said Harold again, and groaned in his bitterness and jealousy.

“Is there nothing to be done?” he asked presently in a harsh voice, for he was very hard hit.