They drove up to Robert’s lodgings, where, since the Winter, he had been living austerely and recklessly; exiled by his sensitiveness from his two homes, Warbeach and Wrexby; and seeking over London for Dahlia—­a pensioner on his friend’s bounty; and therein had lain the degrading misery to a man of his composition.  Often had he thought of enlisting again, and getting drafted to a foreign station.  Nothing but the consciousness that he was subsisting on money not his own would have kept him from his vice.  As it was, he had lived through the months between Winter and Spring, like one threading his way through the tortuous lengths of a cavern; never coming to the light, but coming upon absurd mishaps in his effort to reach it.  His adventures in London partook somewhat of the character of those in Warbeach, minus the victim; for whom two or three gentlemen in public thoroughfares had been taken.  These misdemeanours, in the face of civil society, Robert made no mention of in his letters to Percy.

But there was light now, though at first it gave but a faint glimmer, in a lady’s coloured envelope, lying on the sitting-room table.  Robert opened it hurriedly, and read it; seized Dahlia’s address, with a brain on fire, and said: 

“It’s signed ‘Margaret Lovell.’  This time she calls me ‘Dear Sir.’”

“She could hardly do less,” Percy remarked.

“I know:  but there is a change in her.  There’s a summer in her writing now.  She has kept her word, Percy.  She’s the dearest lady in the world.  I don’t ask why she didn’t help me before.”

“You acknowledge the policy of mild measures,” said Major Waring.

“She’s the dearest lady in the world,” Robert repeated.  He checked his enthusiasm.  “Lord in heaven! what an evening I shall have.”

The thought of his approaching interview with Dahlia kept him dumb.

As they were parting in the street, Major Waring said, “I will be here at twelve.  Let me tell you this, Robert:  she is going to be married; say nothing to dissuade her; it’s the best she can do; take a manly view of it.  Good-bye.”

Robert was but slightly affected by the intelligence.  His thoughts were on Dahlia as he had first seen her, when in her bloom, and the sister of his darling; now miserable; a thing trampled to earth!  With him, pity for a victim soon became lost in rage at the author of the wrong, and as he walked along he reflected contemptuously on his feeble efforts to avenge her at Warbeach.  She lived in a poor row of cottages, striking off from one of the main South-western suburb roads, not very distant from his own lodgings, at which he marvelled, as at a cruel irony.  He could not discern the numbers, and had to turn up several of the dusky little strips of garden to read the numbers on the doors.  A faint smell of lilac recalled the country and old days, and some church bells began ringing.  The number of the house where he was to find Dahlia was seven.  He was at the door of the house next to it, when he heard voices in the garden beside him.