They passed through the main street of the town, lined with plate-glass windows and lively signs, and already bustling with the business of the day, through humbler thoroughfares, and presently rumbled over a bridge that spanned a rushing stream confined between the foundation walls of mills.  Hundreds of yards of mills stretched away on either side; mills with windows wide open, and within them Honora heard the clicking and roaring of machinery, and saw the men and women at their daily tasks.  Life was a strange thing that they should be doing this while she should be going to live in luxury at a great country place.  On one of the walls she read the legend Chiltern and Company.

“They still keep our name,” said Hugh, “although they are in the trust.”

He pointed out to her, with an air of pride, every landmark by the roadside.  In future they were to have a new meaning—­they were to be shared with her.  And he spoke of the times—­as child and youth, home from the seashore or college, he had driven over the same road.  It wound to the left, behind the mills, threaded a village of neat wooden houses where the better class of operatives lived, reached the river again, and turned at last through a brick gateway, past a lodge in the dense shade of sheltering boughs, into a wooded drive that climbed, by gentle degrees, a slope.  Human care for generations had given to the place a tradition.  People had lived here and loved those trees—­his people.  And could it be that she was to inherit all this, with him?  Was her name really Chiltern?

The beating of her heart became a pain when in the distance through the spreading branches she caught a glimpse of the long, low outline of the house, a vision at once familiar and unreal.  How often in the months gone by had she called up the memory of the photograph she had once seen, only to doubt the more that she should ever behold that house and these trees with him by her side!  They drew up before the door, and a venerable, ruddy-faced butler stood gravely on the steps to welcome them.  Hugh leaped out.  He was still the schoolboy.

“Starling,” he said, “this is Mrs. Chiltern.”

Honora smiled tremulously.

“How do you do, Starling?” she said.

“Starling’s an old friend, Honora.  He’s been here ever since I can remember.”

The blue eyes of the old servant were fixed on her with a strange, searching expression.  Was it compassion she read in them, on this that should be the happiest of her days?  In that instant, unaccountably, her heart went out to the old man; and something of what he had seen, and something of what was even now passing within him, came to her intuitively.  It was as though, unexpectedly, she had found a friend—­and a friend who had had no previous intentions of friendship.

“I’m sure I wish you happiness, madame,—­and Mr. Hugh, he said in a voice not altogether firm.

“Happiness!” cried Hugh.  “I’ve never known what it was before now, Starling.”