“Thought—­yes.”

“With not much result, I see.  Never mind; you must have time.  I want you to meet Milligan.  Could you come to lunch next Sunday?  He invites you.”

Warburton shook his head.  He had never cared for the acquaintance of rich men, and was less than ever disposed to sit at their tables.  All his anxieties regarding Sherwood’s mental condition having been set at rest, he would go on with his grocer’s life as long as need be, strengthened with the hope that shone before him.

The end of July had come.  After a week of rain, the weather had turned bright, with a coolness at morning and evening very pleasant at this time of year in London streets.  Warburton had business in the City which he must needs see to personally; he was on the point of leaving the shop, dressed as became a respectable citizen, silk hat and all, when in the doorway appeared Miss Bertha Cross.  A certain surprise marked her smile of recognition; it meant, no doubt, that, never before having seen Mr. Jollyman save bareheaded and aproned, she was struck with the change in his aspect when thus equipped for going abroad.  Immediately Mr. Jollyman doffed his hat and stepped behind the counter.

“Please don’t let me keep you,” said Bertha, with a glance towards Allchin, who was making parcels at the back of the shop.  “I only want some—­some matches, and one or two trifling things.”

Never had she seemed so embarrassed in making a purchase.  Her eyes fell, and she half turned away.  Mr. Jollyman appeared to hesitate, he also glancing towards Allchin; but the young lady quickly recovered herself, and, taking up a packet of something exhibited on the counter, asked its price.  The awkwardness was at an end; Bertha made her purchases, paid for them, and then left the shop as usual.

It was by the last post on the evening after this day that Warburton received a letter of which the exterior puzzled him.  Whose could be this graceful, delicate hand?  A woman’s doubtless; yet he had no female correspondent, save those who wrote from St. Neots.  The postmark was London.  He opened, “Dear Mr. Warburton”—­a glance over the leaf showed him—­“Sincerely yours, Rosamund Elvan.”  H’m!

“Dear Mr. Warburton,—­I am settled in my lodgings here, and getting seriously to work.  It has occurred to me that you might be able to suggest some quaint corner of old London, unknown to me, which would make a good subject for a water-colour.  London has been, I am sure, far too much neglected by artists; if I could mark out a claim here, as the colonists say, I should be lucky.  For the present, I am just sketching (to get my hand in) about Chelsea.  To-morrow afternoon, about six o’clock, if this exquisite mellow weather continues, I shall be on the Embankment in Battersea Park, near the Albert Bridge, where I want to catch a certain effect of sky and water.”