She interrupted with a sudden radiance:  “Oh, no, it’s not that.  My father is married again, you know....  I don’t often talk of it; it was a grief to me.  We were so everything to each other.  But I don’t go home very often, because of that.  I would love to come, Mr. Ruan.  I wonder if I can; I wonder....”

“But why should you wonder?” he urged more boldly; “one advantage of your lonely situation is that you are free to decide for yourself.  Do promise me!”

She turned her head away as though to hide eyes suddenly dewy, then met his look with her wonted level candour.

“I’ll come,” she said; “I’ll come.  Oh, it will he heavenly!...  You don’t know what the mere thought of it means....  To get away, even for a little while, from all this....”  She swept her hands expressively around on the lodging-house surroundings.

“It must be rotten,” said Ishmael in heartfelt accents.  “I know how I felt in the parlour at home after my sister Vassie had done it up for my return.  I felt as though the woolly mats were choking me.  And I couldn’t say anything for fear of hurting her feelings.”

“And have you got used to it?  That’s what I’m always so afraid of—­getting used to ugliness.”

“Vassie has altered.  She is the cleverest girl at picking up ideas I’ve ever known, and somehow when Killigrew was down with us she soon found out, though I don’t think he actually said anything.  And we have beautiful old furniture hidden away in the attics, so we simply pulled it all out, and Vassie and Phoebe are making new needlework seats for the chairs.”

“Is Phoebe another sister?”

“Oh, no; she’s the daughter of Mr. Lenine, the miller.  She was at boarding-school in Plymouth with Vassie, and they’re just like sisters,” said Ishmael in the simplicity of his heart.

“How nice!” said Blanche Grey.

So it was settled between them that Blanche should renew her acquaintance with the country that summer at Cloom, and when Ishmael left he walked on air.  It was not that he was excited so much as that a deep content filled him; life seemed full of promise and even more worth living than he had thought it.  The distrust which that news of Carminow’s had engendered drifted to the back of his brain; he wandered through the streets, picturing the days to come at Cloom.  He came to a pause at last, aware that he had missed the way to the hotel where he was to sup with Carminow and Killigrew.  He looked at the name of the street he was in, and saw that it was the name Carminow had mentioned as being that of the street where Hilaria was lodged.