During the first portion of this time Rupert had been very busy with a great many things that needed his attention.  And then Lord Chobham, his health affected by the crimes and treachery of a kinsman whom he had known and trusted as he had known and trusted Walter, was attacked by acute bronchitis which affected his heart and carried him off within the week.  The title and estates passed, therefore, to General Dunsmore, and Rupert became the Honourable Rupert Dunsmore and the direct heir.  All this meant for him a great deal more to see to and arrange, for the health of the new Lord Chobham had also been affected and he left practically everything in his son’s hands, so that, except for the letters which came regularly but had been often written in great haste, Ella knew and heard little of Rupert.

But today he was to come, for everything was finally in order, and, though this she did not know till later, Walter Dunsmore had at last been discovered, dead from poison self-administered, in a wretched lodging in an East End slum.  Rupert had been called to identify the body and he had been able to arrange it so that very little was said at the inquest, where the customary verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity” was duly returned by a quite uninterested jury.

That the last had been heard of the tragedy that had so nearly overwhelmed his life, Rupert was able now to feel fairly well assured, and it was therefore in a mood more cheerful than he had known of late that he started on his journey to Ella’s new residence.

He had sent a wire to confirm his letter, and it was in a mood that was more than a little nervous that she busied herself with her preparations.

She chose her very simplest gown, and when there was absolutely nothing more to do she went into their little sitting-room to wait alone by the fire she had built up there, for it was winter now and today was cold and inclined to be stormy.

Rupert had not said exactly when she was to expect him, and she sat for a long time by the fire, starting at every sound and imagining at every moment that she heard the front-door bell ring.

“I shall not let him feel himself bound,” she said to herself with great decision.  “I shall tell him I hope we shall always be friends but that’s all; and if he wants anything more, I shall say No.  But most likely he won’t say a word about all that nonsense, it would be silly to take seriously what he said—­there.”

To Ella, now, Bittermeads was always “there,” and though she told herself several times that probably Rupert had not the least idea of repeating what he had said to her—­there—­and that most likely he was coming today merely to make a friendly call, and that it would never do for either of them to think again of what they had said when they were both so excited and overwrought, yet in her heart she knew a great deal better than all that.

But she said to herself very often: