Mrs. Vesey put the other dimpled hand back on the edge of the table; brightened dimly one moment; went out again the next; bowed obediently, and said, “If you please, sir.”

Surely a mild, a compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady!  But enough, perhaps, for the present, of Mrs. Vesey.

All this time, there were no signs of Miss Fairlie.  We finished our luncheon; and still she never appeared.  Miss Halcombe, whose quick eye nothing escaped, noticed the looks that I cast, from time to time, in the direction of the door.

“I understand you, Mr. Hartright,” she said; “you are wondering what has become of your other pupil.  She has been downstairs, and has got over her headache; but has not sufficiently recovered her appetite to join us at lunch.  If you will put yourself under my charge, I think I can undertake to find her somewhere in the garden.”

She took up a parasol lying on a chair near her, and led the way out, by a long window at the bottom of the room, which opened on to the lawn.  It is almost unnecessary to say that we left Mrs. Vesey still seated at the table, with her dimpled hands still crossed on the edge of it; apparently settled in that position for the rest of the afternoon.

As we crossed the lawn, Miss Halcombe looked at me significantly, and shook her head.

“That mysterious adventure of yours,” she said, “still remains involved in its own appropriate midnight darkness.  I have been all the morning looking over my mother’s letters, and I have made no discoveries yet.  However, don’t despair, Mr. Hartright.  This is a matter of curiosity; and you have got a woman for your ally.  Under such conditions success is certain, sooner or later.  The letters are not exhausted.  I have three packets still left, and you may confidently rely on my spending the whole evening over them.”

Here, then, was one of my anticipations of the morning still unfulfilled.  I began to wonder, next, whether my introduction to Miss Fairlie would disappoint the expectations that I had been forming of her since breakfast-time.

“And how did you get on with Mr. Fairlie?” inquired Miss Halcombe, as we left the lawn and turned into a shrubbery.  “Was he particularly nervous this morning?  Never mind considering about your answer, Mr. Hartright.  The mere fact of your being obliged to consider is enough for me.  I see in your face that he was particularly nervous; and, as I am amiably unwilling to throw you into the same condition, I ask no more.”

We turned off into a winding path while she was speaking, and approached a pretty summer-house, built of wood, in the form of a miniature Swiss chalet.  The one room of the summer-house, as we ascended the steps of the door, was occupied by a young lady.  She was standing near a rustic table, looking out at the inland view of moor and hill presented by a gap in the trees, and absently turning over the leaves of a little sketch-book that lay at her side.  This was Miss Fairlie.