Jessica, who declared herself quite well and strong again, though her face did not bear out the assertion, was beginning to talk of matters examinational once more.  Notwithstanding protests, she brought forth from their hiding-place sundry arid little manuals and black-covered notebooks; her thoughts were divided between algebraic formulae and Nancy’s relations with Lionel Tarrant.  Perhaps because no secret was confided to her, she affected more appetite for the arid little books than she really felt.  Nancy would neither speak of examinations, nor give ear when they were talked about; she, whether consciously or not, was making haste to graduate in quite another school.

On the morning after her long walk with Tarrant, she woke before sunrise, and before seven o’clock had left the house.  A high wind and hurrying clouds made the weather prospects uncertain.  She strayed about the Den, never losing sight for more than a minute or two of the sea-fronting house where Tarrant lived.  But no familiar form approached her, and she had to return to breakfast unrewarded for early rising.

Through the day she was restless and silent, kept alone as much as possible, and wore a look which, as the hours went on, darkened from anxiety to ill-humour.  She went to bed much earlier than usual.

At eleven next morning, having lingered behind her friends, she found Tarrant in conversation with Mrs. Morgan and Jessica on the pier.  His greeting astonished her; it had precisely the gracious formality of a year ago; a word or two about the weather, and he resumed his talk with Miss.  Morgan—­its subject, the educational value of the classics.  Obliged to listen, Nancy suffered an anguish of resentful passion.  For a quarter of an hour she kept silence, then saw the young man take leave and saunter away with that air which, in satire, she had formerly styled majestic.

And then passed three whole days, during which Lionel was not seen.

The evening of the fourth, between eight and nine o’clock, found Nancy at the door of the house which her thoughts had a thousand times visited.  A servant, in reply to inquiry, told her that Mr Tarrant was in London; he would probably return to-morrow.

She walked idly away—­and, at less than a hundred yards’ distance, met Tarrant himself.  His costume showed that he had just come from the railway station.  Nancy would gladly have walked straight past him, but the tone in which he addressed her was a new surprise, and she stood in helpless confusion.  He had been to London—­called away on sudden business.

’I thought of writing—­nay, I did write, but after all didn’t post the letter.  For a very simple reason—­I couldn’t remember your address.’

And he laughed so naturally, that the captive walked on by his side, unresisting.  Their conversation lasted only a few minutes, then Nancy resolutely bade him good-night, no appointment made for the morrow.