He reached several times for his pipe, and remembered when he had touched it that the lips with which he greeted Nancy ought not to be redolent of tobacco.  In outward respect, at all events, he would not fall short.

Just when his nervousness was becoming intolerable, there sounded a knock.  The knock he had anticipated—­timid, brief.  He stepped hastily from the room, and opened.  Nancy hardly looked at him, and neither of them spoke till the closing of two doors had assured their privacy.

‘Well, you had no difficulty in finding the place?’

‘No—­none at all.’

They stood apart, and spoke with constraint.  Nancy’s bosom heaved, as though she had been hastening overmuch; her face was deeply coloured; her eyes had an unwonted appearance, resembling those of a night-watcher at weary dawn.  She cast quick glances about the room, but with the diffidence of an intruder.  Her attitude was marked by the same characteristic; she seemed to shrink, to be ashamed.

‘Come and sit down,’ said Tarrant cheerfully, as he wheeled a chair.

She obeyed him, and he, stooping beside her, offered his lips.  Nancy kissed him, closing her eyes for the moment, then dropping them again.

‘It seems a long time, Nancy—­doesn’t it?’

‘Yes—­a very long time.’

‘You couldn’t come on Sunday?’

’I found my father very ill.  I didn’t like to leave home till to-day.’

‘Your father ill?—­You said nothing of it in your letter.’

‘No—­I didn’t like to—­with the other things.’

A singular delicacy this; Tarrant understood it, and looked at her thoughtfully.  Again she was examining the room with hurried glance; upon him her eyes did not turn.  He asked questions about Mr. Lord.  Nancy could not explain the nature of his illness; he had spoken of gout, but she feared it must be something worse; the change in him since she went away was incredible and most alarming.  This she said in short, quick sentences, her voice low.  Tarrant thought to himself that in her too, a very short time had made a very notable change; he tried to read its significance, but could reach no certainty.

’I’m sorry to hear all this—­very sorry.  You must tell me more about your father.  Take off your hat, dear, and your gloves.’

Her gloves she removed first, and laid them on her lap; Tarrant took them away.  Then her hat; this too he placed on the table.  Having done so, he softly touched the plaits of her hair.  And, for the first time, Nancy looked up at him.

‘Are you glad to see me?’ she asked, in a voice that seemed subdued by doubt of the answer.

‘I am—­very glad.’

His hand fell to her shoulder.  With a quick movement, a stifled exclamation, the girl rose and flung her arms about him.

‘Are you really glad?—­Do you really love me?’

‘Never doubt it, dear girl.’

’Ah, but I can’t help.  I have hardly slept at night, in trying to get rid of the doubt.  When you opened the door, I felt you didn’t welcome me.  Don’t you think of me as a burden?  I can’t help wondering why I am here.’