On the Saturday morning, Mrs. Hamlyn was driven to Evesham in the close carriage, and took the train to London.  Her husband, ever kind and attentive, met her at the Paddington terminus.  He was looking haggard, and seemed to be thinner than when she left him nine days ago.

“Are you well, Philip?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh, quite well,” quickly answered poor Philip Hamlyn, smiling a warm smile, that he meant to look like a gay one.  “Nothing ever ails me.”

No, nothing might ail him bodily; but mentally—­ah, how much!  That awful terror lay upon him thick and threefold; it had not yet come to any solution, one way or the other.  Major Pratt had taken up the very worst view of it; and spent his days pitching hard names at misbehaving syrens, gifted with “the deuce’s own cunning” and with mermaids’ shining hair.

“And how have things been going, Penelope?” asked Mrs. Hamlyn of the nurse, as she sat in the nursery with her boy upon her knee.  “All right?”

“Quite so, ma’am.  Master Walter has been just as good as gold.”

“Mamma’s darling!” murmured the doting mother, burying her face in his.  “I have been thinking, Penelope, that your master does not look well,” she added after a minute.

“No, ma’am?  I’ve not noticed it.  We have not seen much of him up here; he has been at his club a good deal—­and dined three or four times with old Major Pratt.”

“As if she would notice it!—­servants never notice anything!” thought Eliza Hamlyn in her imperious way of judging the world.  “By the way, Penelope,” she said aloud in light and careless tones, “has that woman with the yellow hair been seen about much?—­has she presumed again to accost my little son?”

“The woman with the yellow hair?” repeated Penelope, looking at her mistress, for the girl had quite forgotten the episode.  “Oh, I remember—­she that stood outside there and came to us in the square-garden.  No, ma’am, I’ve seen nothing at all of her since that day.”

“For there are wicked people who prowl about to kidnap children,” continued Mrs. Hamlyn, as if she would condescend to explain her inquiry, “and that woman looked like one.  Never suffer her to approach my darling again.  Mind that, Penelope.”

The jealous heart is not easily reassured.  And Mrs. Hamlyn, restless and suspicious, put the same question to her husband.  It was whilst they were waiting in the drawing-room for dinner to be announced, and she had come down from changing her apparel after her journey.  How handsome she looked! a right regal woman! as she stood there arrayed in dark blue velvet, the fire-light playing upon her proud face, and upon the diamond earrings and brooch she wore.

“Philip, has that woman been prowling about here again?”

Just for an imperceptible second, for thought is quick, it occurred to Philip Hamlyn to temporise, to affect ignorance, and say, What woman? just as if his mind were not full of the woman, and of nothing else.  But he abandoned it as useless.