No new revelations came back with them:  no anticipations associated with their return were realized.  On the one forbidden subject of their errand in London, there was no moving either the master or the mistress of the house.  Whatever their object might have been, they had to all appearance successfully accomplished it—­for they both returned in perfect possession of their every-day looks and manners.  Mrs. Vanstone’s spirits had subsided to their natural quiet level; Mr. Vanstone’s imperturbable cheerfulness sat as easily and indolently on him as usual.  This was the one noticeable result of their journey—­this, and no more.  Had the household revolution run its course already?  Was the secret thus far hidden impenetrably, hidden forever?

Nothing in this world is hidden forever.  The gold which has lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface.  Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned.  Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it.  Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas who betrays it by a kiss.  Look where we will, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the laws of nature:  the lasting preservation of a secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen.

How was the secret now hidden in the household at Combe-Raven doomed to disclose itself?  Through what coming event in the daily lives of the father, the mother, and the daughters, was the law of revelation destined to break the fatal way to discovery?  The way opened (unseen by the parents, and unsuspected by the children) through the first event that happened after Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone’s return—­an event which presented, on the surface of it, no interest of greater importance than the trivial social ceremony of a morning call.

Three days after the master and mistress of Combe-Raven had come back, the female members of the family happened to be assembled together in the morning-room.  The view from the windows looked over the flower-garden and shrubbery; this last being protected at its outward extremity by a fence, and approached from the lane beyond by a wicket-gate.  During an interval in the conversation, the attention of the ladies was suddenly attracted to this gate, by the sharp sound of the iron latch falling in its socket.  Some one had entered the shrubbery from the lane; and Magdalen at once placed herself at the window to catch the first sight of the visitor through the trees.

After a few minutes, the figure of a gentleman became visible, at the point where the shrubbery path joined the winding garden-walk which led to the house.  Magdalen looked at him attentively, without appearing, at first, to know who he was.  As he came nearer, however, she started in astonishment; and, turning quickly to her mother and sister, proclaimed the gentleman in the garden to be no other than “Mr. Francis Clare.”