He reached the station barely in time to engage a carriage before the train came in.  He took up his position inside the gates through which all passengers must pass from the train-shed into the great station.

“Looking for somebody?” asked a voice at his elbow.

He glanced quickly down at one of his old schoolmates, Carolyn Houghton.  “Yes, guests of the Churchills,” he answered, his gaze instantly returning to the throng pouring toward him from the train.  “Help me, will you?  I don’t know them from Adam.  It’s a man and his invalid sister, old friends of Andy’s.”

“There they are,” said Carolyn, promptly, indicating an approaching pair.

Jeff laughed.  “The sister isn’t quite so antique as that,” he objected, as a little woman of fifty wavered past on the arm of a stout gentleman.

“You said ‘old’ friends,” retorted Carolyn.  “Look, Jeff, isn’t that she?  The sister’s being wheeled in a chair by a porter, the brother’s walking beside her.  They look like Doctor Churchill’s friends, Jeff.”

“Think you can tell Andy’s friends by their uniform?”

“You can tell anybody’s intimate friends in a crowd—­I mean the same kind of people look alike,” asserted Carolyn, with emphasis.  “These are the ones, I’m sure.  I’ll just watch while you greet them and then I’ll slip off.  I’m taking this next train.  What a sweet face that girl has, but how delicate—­like a little flower.  She’s a dear, I’m sure.  The brother looks nice, too.  They’re the ones, I know.  See, the brother’s looking hard at us all inside the gates.”

“Here goes, then.  Good-by!” Jeff turned away to the task of making himself known to the strangers.  But he was forced to admit that if Charlotte must meet another onslaught of visitors, these certainly did look attractive.

“Yes, I’m Thorne Lee,” the young man answered, with a straight look into Jeff’s eyes and a grasp of the outstretched hand as Jeff introduced himself.  He motioned the porter to wheel the chair out of the pressing crowd.

Jeff explained about the delayed telegram.  Mr. Lee presented him to the young girl in the chair, and Jeff looked down into a pair of hazel eyes which instantly claimed his sympathy, the shadows of fatigue lay on them so heavily.  But Miss Evelyn Lee’s smile was bright if fleeting, and she answered Jeff’s announcement that he had a carriage waiting with so appreciative a word of gratitude that he found his preconceived antipathy to Doctor Churchill’s guests slipping away.

So presently he had them in a carriage and bowling through the streets which led toward the suburbs.  Thorne Lee sat beside his sister, supporting her, and talked with Jeff.  By the time they had covered the long drive to the house Jeff was hoping Lee would stay a month.

The hazel eyes of Lee’s young sister had closed and the lashes lay wearily sweeping the pale cheeks as the carriage drove up.