He talked solely of the present, discussed with her the season’s pictures, the books, the idle business of the town.  At length she found herself able to meet his glance without fear, even to try and read its character.  She thought of the day when her mother told her of his wickedness.  Since then she had made acquaintance with wickedness in various forms, and now she marvelled at the way in which she had regarded him.  ‘I was a child, a child,’ she repeated to herself.  Thinking thus, she lost none of his words.  He spoke of the things which interested her most deeply; how much he could teach her, were such teaching possible!

At last she ventured upon a personal question.

‘How is Mrs. Eldon?’

She thought he looked at her gratefully; certainly there was a deep kindness in his eyes, a look which was one of the new things she noted in him.

‘Very much as when you knew her,’ he replied.  ’Weaker, I fear.  I have just spent a few days at Agworth.’

Doubtless he had often been at Agworth; perchance he was there, so close by, in some of the worst hours of her misery.

When the ladies withdrew Mrs. Boscobel seated herself by Adela for a moment.

‘So you really knew Mr. Eldon?’

‘Yes, but it is some time since I saw him,’ Adela replied simply, smiling in the joy of being so entirely mistress of herself.

’You were talking pictures, I heard.  You can trust him there; his criticism is admirable.  You know he did the Grosvenor for the—?’

She mentioned a weekly paper.

‘There are so many things I don’t know,’ Adela replied laughingly, ‘and that is one of them.’

Hubert shortly after had his wish in being presented to Mrs. Westlake.  Adela observed them as they talked together.  Gladness she could hardly bear possessed her when she saw on Stella’s face the expression of interest which not everyone could call forth.  She did not ask why she was so glad; for this one evening it might be allowed her to rest and forget and enjoy.

There was singing, and the sweetest of the songs went home with her and lived in her heart all through a night which was too voiceful for sleep.  Might she think of him henceforth as a friend?  Would she meet him again before her return to—­to the darkness of that ravaged valley?  Her mood was a strange one; conscience gave her no trouble, appeared suspended.  And why should conscience have interfered with her?  Her happiness was as apart from past and future as if by some magic she had been granted an intermezzo of life wholly distinct from her real one.  These people with whom she found living so pleasant did not really enter her existence; it was as though she played parts to give her pleasure; she merely looked on for the permitted hour.

But Stella was real, real as that glorious star whose name she knew not, the brightest she could see from her chamber window.  To Stella her soul clung with passion and worship.  Stella’s kiss had power to make her all but faint with ecstasy; it was the kiss which woke her from her dream, the kiss which would for ever be to her a terror and a mystery.