Helena came with him to the inn to get his bicycle.  They said little to each other, till, just as he was departing, French bent over to her, as she stood beside his machine.

“Do I understand?—­I may tell him?”

“Yes.”  And then for the first time she smiled upon him; a smile that was heavenly soft and kind; so that he went off in mounting spirits.

Helena retraced her steps to the river-side, where they had left Lucy.  She sat down on a rock by Lucy’s side, and instinctively Lucy put down some knitting she held, and turned an eager face—­her soul in her eyes.

“Lucy—­I am engaged to Geoffrey French.”

Lucy laughed and cried; held the bright head in her arms and kissed the cheek that lay upon her shoulder.  Helena’s eyes too were wet; and in both there was the memory of that night at Beechmark which had made them sisters rather than friends.

“And of course,” said Helena—­“you’ll stay with me for ever.”

But Lucy was far too happy to think of her own future.  She had made friends—­real friends—­in these three months, after years of loneliness.  It seemed to her that was all that mattered.  And half guiltily her memory cherished those astonishing words—­“Mr. Alcott and I miss you very much.”

A drizzling rain had begun when towards eight o’clock they heard the sound of a motor coming up the Bettws road.  Lucy retreated into the inn, while Helena stood at the gate waiting.

Buntingford waved to her as they approached, then jumped out and followed her into the twilight of the inn parlour.

“My dear Helena!” He put his arm round her shoulder and kissed her heartily.  “God bless you!—­good luck to you!  Geoffrey has given me the best news I have heard for many a long day.”

“You are pleased?” she said, softly, looking at him.

He sat down by her, holding her hands, and revealing to her his own long-cherished dream of what had now come to pass.  “The very day you came to Beechmark, I wrote to Geoffrey, inviting him.  And I saw you by chance the day after the dance, together, in the lime-walk.”  Helena’s start almost drew her hands away.  He laughed.  “I wasn’t eavesdropping, dear, and I heard nothing.  But my dream seemed to be coming true, and I went away in tip-top spirits—­just an hour, I think, before Geoffrey found that drawing.”

He released her, with an unconscious sigh, and she was able to see how much older he seemed to have grown; the touches of grey in his thick black hair, and the added wrinkles round his eyes,—­those blue eyes that gave him his romantic look, and were his chief beauty.  But he resumed at once: 

“Well, now then, the sooner you come back to Beechmark the better.  Think of the lawyers—­the trousseau—­the wedding.  My dear, you’ve no time to waste!—­nor have I. Geoffrey is an impatient fellow—­he always was.”

“And I shall see Arthur?” she asked him gently.