Some twenty minutes later there are still two ladies sitting on in the small tea-room, where it is the fashion at Shadonake to linger between the hours of five and seven, who alone have not yet moved to obey the mandate of the dressing-bell.

“What is the good of waiting?” says Beatrice, impatiently; “the train is often late, and, besides, he may not come till the nine o’clock train.”

“That is just what I want to wait for,” answers Helen Romer.  “I want just to hear if the carriage has come back, and then I shall know for certain.”

“Well, you know how frightfully punctual papa is, and how angry it makes him if anybody is late.”

“Just two minutes more, Beatrice; I can dress very quickly when once I set to work,” pleads Helen.

Beatrice sits down again on the arm of the sofa, and resigns herself to her fate; but she looks rather annoyed and vexed about it.

Mrs. Romer paces the room feverishly and impatiently.

“What did you think of Miss Nevill?” asks Beatrice.

“I could hardly see her in her hat and that thick veil; but she looked as if she were handsome.”

“She is beautiful!” says Beatrice, emphatically, “and uncle Tom says——­”

“Hush!” interrupts Helen, hurriedly.  “Is not that the sound of wheels?—­Yes, it is the carriage.”

She flies to the door.

“Take care, Helen,” says Beatrice, anxiously; “don’t open the door wide, don’t let the servants think we have been waiting, it looks so bad—­so—­so unlady-like.”

But Helen Romer does not even hear her; she is listening intently to the approaching sounds, with the half-opened door in her hand.

The tea-room door opens into a large inner hall, out of which leads the principal staircase; the outer or entrance-hall is beyond; and presently the stopping of the carriage, the opening and shutting of doors from the servants’ departments, and all the usual bustle of an arrival are heard.

The two girls stand close together listening, Beatrice hidden in the shadow of the room.

“There are two voices!” cries Helen, in a disappointed tone; “he is not alone!”

“I suppose it is Mr. Pryme—­mamma said he might come by this train,” answers Beatrice, so quietly that no one could ever have guessed how her heart was beating.

“Helen, do let us run upstairs; I really cannot stay.  Let me go, at all events!” she adds, with a sudden agony of entreaty as the guests were heard advancing towards the door of the inner hall.  And as Helen made not the slightest sign of moving, Beatrice slipped past her and ran lightly and swiftly across the hall upstairs, and disappeared along the landing above just as Captain Kynaston and Mr. Herbert Pryme appeared upon the scene below.

No such scruples of modesty troubled Mrs. Romer.  As the young men entered the inner hall preceded by the butler, who was taking them up to their rooms, and followed by two footmen who were bearing their portmanteaus, Helen stepped boldly forward out of the shelter of the tea-room, and held out her hand to Captain Kynaston.