‘A gentleman for me, Ellen?  Yes, I shall be there presently,’ she said, without looking at the card on the salver.  ’Is Miss Peck in the drawing-room?’

‘No, ma’am; she is taking her rest.  Shall I tell her?’

‘Oh no.  Who is it?’

She added another word to her letter, and then read the name on the card.  The maid standing by could not help seeing the lovely access of colour in the fair cheek of her mistress, and, as was natural, drew her own conclusions.

Gladys rose at once, and proceeded up-stairs.  She did not, as almost every other woman in the circumstances would have done, go to her own room to inspect her appearance or make any change in her toilet.  And, in truth, none was needed.  Her plain black serge gown, with its little ruffle at the neck, which would have made a dowdy of almost anybody but herself, was at once a fitting and becoming robe.  Her lovely hair, which in the early days had hung in straight heavy plaits over her back, was now wound about her head, and kept in place by a band and knot of black velvet.  She moved with the calm mien and serious grace of a woman at ease with herself and all the world.  A faint hesitation, however, visited her when she stood without the closed door of the drawing-room.  That curious prevision, which most of us experience at times, that something unusual was in store, robbed her for a moment of her usual self-possession; but, smiling and inwardly chiding herself for her own folly, she opened the door and entered the presence of her lover.  She knew him to be such, it was impossible to mistake his demeanour and his attitude towards her.  There was the most lover-like eagerness in his look and step as he came towards her, and under his gaze the girl’s sweet eyes drooped and her colour deepened.

‘This is quite a surprise,’ she said gaily.  ’Why did you not bring some of the girls with you?’

’I haven’t seen them for ages, and Julia has a dance on to-night for which she is saving herself.  Besides, perhaps, I wanted to come quite alone.’

‘Yes?’ she said in a voice faintly interrogatory.  ’And you had to walk from the station, too?  If you had only wired in the morning, I could have come or sent for you.’

’But, you see, I did not know in the morning I should be here to-day.  It is often the unexpected that happens.  I came off on the impulse of the moment.  Are you glad to see me?’

It was a very direct question; but Gladys had now quite recovered herself, and met it with a calm smile.

’Why, of course; how could I be otherwise?  But, I say, you said a moment ago you had not seen any of the girls for ages; it is only forty-eight hours since we met in your aunt’s drawing-room.’

‘So it is,’ he said innocently.  ’I had quite forgotten, which shows how time goes with me when you are out of town.  Are you really going to bury yourself here all winter?’

’I am going to live here, of course.  It is my home, and I don’t want any other.  A day in Glasgow once a week is quite enough for me.’