“Come down and see my mother,” Maurice had said to her; “she has not seen you for a long while.  I am just going back to Walpole Lodge to lunch.”

“I should like to come very much.  You have no objection, I suppose, mamma?”

No; Mrs. Miller could have no possible objection.  Lady Kynaston was amongst her oldest and most respected friends; under whose house could Beatrice be safer?  And even Maurice, as an escort, engaged to be married so shortly as he was known to be, was perfectly unobjectionable.

Beatrice went, and, as we have seen, lunched at Walpole Lodge.  She had told her mother not to expect her till late in the afternoon, as, in all probability, Lady Kynaston would drive her into town and would drop her in Eaton Square at the end of her drive.  Mrs. Miller, to whose watchful maternal mind the Temple and Kew appeared to be in such totally different directions that they presented no connecting suggestions, agreed, unsuspiciously, not to expect her daughter back until after six o’clock.

In this way Beatrice secured the whole afternoon to herself to do what she liked with it.  She was not slow to make use of it.  There was all the pluck of the Esterworths in her veins, together with all the determination and energy which had raised her father’s family from a race of shopkeepers to take their place amongst gentlemen.

As soon as Captain Kynaston joined the two ladies in the garden at Walpole Lodge after luncheon Beatrice requested him to order a hansom to be fetched for her.

“Why should you hurry away?” said Maurice, politely.  “My mother will take you back to town in the carriage if you will wait.”

Helen was stooping over the flower-beds, gathering some violets.  Beatrice stepped closer to Maurice.

“Don’t say a word, there’s a good fellow, but get me the hansom—­and—­and—­please don’t mention it at home.”

Then Maurice, who was no tyro in such matters, understood that it was expected of him that he should ask no questions, but do what he was told and hold his tongue.

The sequence of which proceedings was, that a hansom cab drew up at the far corner of the little stone-flagged court in the Temple between four and five that afternoon.

Mr. Pryme was no longer by the window when it did so, so that he was totally unprepared for the visitor, whose trembling and twice-repeated tap at his door he answered somewhat impatiently—­

“Come in, and be d——­d to you, and don’t stand rapping at that door all day.”

The people, as a rule, who solicited admittance to his chambers were either the boy from the legal light below, who came to ask whether the papers were ready that had been sent up this morning, or else they were smiling and sleek-faced tradesmen who washed their hands insinuatingly whilst they requested that Mr. Pryme would be kind enough to settle that little outstanding account.

Either of these visitors were equally unwelcome, which must be some excuse for the roughness of Mr. Pryme’s language.