* * * * *

Mr. Phillips arrived the next morning as usual, just as Mabel had left the old lady’s room, and asked news of her.

“She is a little better, I think,” said Mabel.  “She must be very quiet all day.”

The secretary bowed and turned aside into Oliver’s room, where a heap of letters lay to be answered.

A couple of hours later, as Mabel went upstairs once more, she met Mr. Phillips coming down.  He looked a little flushed under his sallow skin.

“Mrs. Brand sent for me,” he said.  “She wished to know whether Mr. Oliver would be back to-night.”

“He will, will he not?  You have not heard?”

“Mr. Brand said he would be here for a late dinner.  He will reach London at nineteen.”

“And is there any other news?”

He compressed his lips.

“There are rumours,” he said.  “Mr. Brand wired to me an hour ago.”

He seemed moved at something, and Mabel looked at him in astonishment.

“It is not Eastern news?” she asked.

His eyebrows wrinkled a little.

“You must forgive me, Mrs. Brand,” he said.  “I am not at liberty to say anything.”

She was not offended, for she trusted her husband too well; but she went on into the sick-room with her heart beating.

The old lady, too, seemed excited.  She lay in bed with a clear flush in her white cheeks, and hardly smiled at all to the girl’s greeting.

“Well, you have seen Mr. Phillips, then?” said Mabel.

Old Mrs. Brand looked at her sharply an instant, but said nothing.

“Don’t excite yourself, mother.  Oliver will be back to-night.”

The old lady drew a long breath.

“Don’t trouble about me, my dear,” she said.  “I shall do very well now.  He will be back to dinner, will he not?”

“If the volor is not late.  Now, mother, are you ready for breakfast?”

* * * * *

Mabel passed an afternoon of considerable agitation.  It was certain that something had happened.  The secretary, who breakfasted with her in the parlour looking on to the garden, had appeared strangely excited.  He had told her that he would be away the rest of the day:  Mr. Oliver had given him his instructions.  He had refrained from all discussion of the Eastern question, and he had given her no news of the Paris Convention; he only repeated that Mr. Oliver would be back that night.  Then he had gone of in a hurry half-an-hour later.

The old lady seemed asleep when the girl went up afterwards, and Mabel did not like to disturb her.  Neither did she like to leave the house; so she walked by herself in the garden, thinking and hoping and fearing, till the long shadow lay across the path, and the tumbled platform of roofs was bathed in a dusty green haze from the west.

As she came in she took up the evening paper, but there was no news there except to the effect that the Convention would close that afternoon.