For a vague encouragement, Dorothea said:  ’One week, and we are back home at Moorsedge!’—­not so far from Cronidge, was implied, for the administering of some foolish temporary comfort.  And it was as when a fish on land springs its hollow sides in alien air for the sustaining element; the girl panted; she clasped Dorothea’s hand and looked at Virginia:  ‘My mother—­I must see her!’ she said.  They were slightly stupefied by the unwonted mention of her mother.  They made no reply.  They never had done so when there was allusion to her mother.  Their silence now struck a gong at the girl’s bosom.

Dorothea had it in mind to say, that if she thirsted for any special comfort, the friends about her would offer consolation for confidence.

Before she could speak, Perrin the footman entered, bearing the card of the Hon. Dudley Sowerby.

Mr. Dudley Sowerby begged for an immediate interview with Miss Radnor.

The ladies were somewhat agitated, but no longer perplexed as to their duties.  They had quitted Moorsedge to avoid the visit of his family.  If he followed, it signified that which they could not withstand:—­The ‘Tivoli falls!’ as they named the fateful tremendous human passion, from the reminiscences of an impressive day on their travels in youth; when the leaping torrent had struck upon a tale of love they were reading.  They hurriedly entreated Nesta to command her nerves; peremptorily requested her to stay where she was; showed her spontaneously, by way of histrionic adjuration, the face to be worn by young ladies at greetings on these occasions; kissed her and left her; Virginia whispering:  ’He is true!’

Dudley entered the drawing-room, charged with his happy burden of a love that had passed through the furnace.  She stood near a window, well in the light; she hardly gave him welcome.  His address to her was hurried, rather uncertain, coherent enough between the drop and the catch of articulate syllables.  He found himself holding his hat.  He placed it on the table, and it rolled foolishly; but soon he was by her side, having two free hands to claim her one.

’You are thinking, you have not heard from me!  I have been much occupied,’ he said.  ‘My brother is ill, very ill.  I have your pardon?’

‘Indeed you have—­if it has to be asked.’

‘I have it?’

‘Have I to grant it?’

’I own to remissness!

‘I did not blame you.’

‘Nesta . . . !’

Her coldness was unshaken.

He repeated the call of her name.  ’I should have written—­I ought to have written!—­I could not have expressed . . .  You do forgive?  So many things!’

‘You come from Cronidge to-day?’

‘From my family—­to you.’

She seemed resentful.  His omissions as a correspondent were explicable in a sentence.  It had to be deferred.

Reviewing for a moment the enormous internal conflict undergone by him during the period of the silence between them, he wondered at the vastness of the love which had conquered objections, to him so poignant.