“I am glad to see you back, Mr. Parmalee,” she said.  “I have been expecting you for the last two days.”

“And wearing yourself to skin and bone, as I knew you would, with your fidgets.  What’s the good of taking on so?  I told you I’d come back as quick as I could, and I’ve done so.  It ain’t my fault that the time’s been so long—­it’s Lady Kingsland’s.”

“You have seen her?”

“That I have.  And very well worth seeing she is, I tell you.  She’s as handsome as a picture, though not so handsome as you must have been at her age, either, Mrs. Denover.  And she says she’ll see you.”

“Oh, thank God!”

The woman tottered hack and sunk into a chair.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Parmalee; “take a seat, and let us talk it all over at our ease.”

He took one himself, not in the ordinary fashion, but with his face to the back, his arms crossed over it, and his long legs twisted scientifically round the bottom.

“I’ve seen him, and I’ve seen her,” said the photographer, “and a finer-looking couple ain’t from here to anywhere.  And as the Lord made ’em, He matched ’em for an all-fired prouder pair you couldn’t meet in a summer-day’s walk.”

“She comes of a proud race,” the woman murmured, feebly.  “The Hunsdens are of the best and oldest stock in England.”

“And she’s a thorough-bred, if ever there was a thorough-bred one yet, and blood will show in a woman as well as a horse.  Yes, she’s proud, she’s handsome and dreadful cut up, I can tell you, at the news I brought her.”

The woman covered her face with her hands with a low moan.  Mr. Parmalee composedly went on: 

“She knew your picture the minute she clapped eyes on it.  I was afraid she might holler, as you wimmin do, at the sight, and her husband and another young woman were present, but she’s got grit, that girl, the real sort.  She turns round, by George! and gives me such a look—­went through me like a carving-knife—­and gets up without a word and walks away.  And she never sent for me nor asked a question about it, although I mentioned you gave it to me, until I forced her to it, and after that no one need talk to me about the curiosity of the fair sex.”

“Does her husband know?”

“No; and he’s as jealous as a Turk.  I wrote her a note—­just a line—­and sent it by that other young woman I spoke of, and what does he do but come to me like a roaring lion, and like to pummel my innards out!  I owe him one for that, and I’ll pay him off, too.  I had to send again to my lady before she would condescend to see me, but when she did, I must say she behaved like a trump.  She gave me thirty sovereigns plump down, promised me three hundred pounds, and told me to fetch you along.  It ain’t as much as I expected to make in this speculation; but, on the whole, I consider it a pretty tolerable fair stroke of business.”

“Thank God!” the woman whispered, “thank God!  I shall see my lost darling once before I die!”