‘I saw from a quarter of a mile away,’ he said, ’that someone was sitting here, and I came down on the chance that it might be you.’

She rose with a very slight show of surprise, and returned his greeting with calm friendliness.

’We were speaking of you at breakfast.  My cousin couldn’t tell us for certain whether you were in England, though she knew you were in London a month ago.’

‘Miss Tyrrell is with you?’ he asked, as if it were very unexpected.

’But didn’t you know?  She has been ill, and they sent her to us to recruit.’

‘Ah!  I have been in Jersey for a month; I have heard nothing.’

‘You were able to tear yourself from London in mid-season?’

‘But when was I a devotee of the Season, Miss Newthorpe?’

‘We hear you progress in civilisation.’

’Well, I hope so.  I’ve had a month of steady reading, and feel better for it.  I took a big chest of books to Jersey.  But I hope Miss Tyrrell is better?’

‘Quite herself again.  Shall we walk up to the house?’

‘I have broken in upon your reading.’

She exhibited the volume; it was Buskin’s ‘Sesame and Lilies.’

‘Ah! you got it; and like it?’

‘On the whole.’

‘That is disappointing.’

Annabel was silent, then spoke of another matter as they walked up from the lake.

This Mr. Egremont had not the look of a man who finds his joy in the life of Society.  His clean-shaven face was rather bony, and its lines expressed independence of character.  His forehead was broad, his eyes glanced quickly and searchingly, or widened themselves into an absent gazing which revealed the imaginative temperament.  His habitual cast of countenance was meditative, with a tendency to sadness.  In talk he readily became vivacious; his short sentences, delivered with a very clear and conciliating enunciation, seemed to indicate energy.  It was a peculiarity that he very rarely smiled, or perhaps I should say that he had the faculty of smiling only with his eyes.  At such moments his look was very winning, very frank in its appeal to sympathy, and compelled one to like him.  Yet, at another time, his aspect could be shrewdly critical; it was so when Annabel fell short of enthusiasm in speaking of the book he had recommended to her when last at Ullswater.  Probably he was not without his share of scepticism.  For all that, it was the visage of an idealist.

Annabel led him into the house and to the study door, at which she knocked; then she stood aside for him to enter before her.  Mr. Newthorpe was writing; he looked up absently, but light gathered in his eyes as he recognised the visitor.

‘So here you are!  We talked of you this morning.  How have you come?’

‘On foot from Pooley Bridge.’

They clasped hands, then Egremont looked behind him; but Annabel had closed the door and was gone.