“Oh dear, mamma!  I have forgotten that letter.  Please wait for me; I won’t be a minute.”

And she disappeared, the others moving out on to the staircase.  When Madeline rejoined them, it was with the intelligence that the visitor had been admitted.

“Who can he be?”

“Rather a strange-looking person.”

“Miss Doran cannot be ill.  She has no brother.  What an odd thing!”

They walked on, close serried, murmuring to each other discreetly. . . .

For several minutes there had been perfect stillness in the room, a hush after the music of low, impassioned voices.  It was broken, yet scarcely broken, by the sound of lips touching lips—­touching to part sweetly, touching again to part more slowly, more sweetly still.

“They will not influence you against me?”

“Never! never!”

“They will try, Cecily.  You will hear endless things to my disadvantage—­things that I cannot contradict if you ask me.”

“I care for nothing, Reuben.  I am yours for ever and ever, hear what I may, happen what may!”

“Don’t call me by my hateful name, dearest.  We will find some other, if I must have a name for you.”

“Why, that is like Romeo!”

“So it is; I wish I had no worse than Romeo’s reason.  I had rather have had the vulgarest Anglo-Saxon name than this Jewish one.  Happily, I need have no fear in telling you that; you are no Puritan.”

“As little as a girl could be.”  She laughed in her happiness.  “Have you the same dislike for your sister’s name?”

“Just the same.  I believe it partly explains her life.”

“She will not be against us, though?”

“Neither for nor against, I am afraid.  Yet I have to thank her for the meeting with you at Pompeii.  Why haven’t you asked me how I came there?”

“I never thought to ask.  It seemed so natural.  I longed for you, and you stood before me.  I could almost believe that my longing had power to bring you, so strong it was.  But tell me.”

He did so, and again they lost themselves in rapturous dreamland.

“Do you think Mr. Mallard will wish to see me?” she asked timidly.

“I can’t be sure.  I half think not.”

“Yet I half wish he would.  I should find it strange and a little difficult, but he couldn’t be harsh with me.  I think it might do good if he came to see me—­in a day or two.”

“On what terms have you always been with him?  How does he behave to you?”

“Oh, you know him.  He still looks upon me rather too much as a child, and he seems to have a pleasure in saying odd, half-rude things; but we are excellent friends—­or have been.  Such a delightful day as we had at Baiae!  I have always liked him.”

“At Baiae?  You didn’t go alone with him?”

“No; Miriam was there and Mr. Spence.  We found him dreaming at Pozzuoli, and carried him off in the boat with us.”