'Miss Collingwood?' _She_ was at home, and on receiving the card of Chute, the valet, who knew that his name was not on the visitors' list, again looked suspiciously at the bag and sword-case, and while marvelling 'what line the "Captain" was in--barometers, French jewellery, or fancy soaps,' passed the card to a 'gentleman' in plain clothes, and after some delay and formality our friend was ushered upstairs. Again he found himself in that familiar drawing-room--but alone. It seemed as if not a day had elapsed since he had last stood there, and that all the intervening time was a dream, and that he and Clare were as they might have been. From the windows the view was all unchanged; he could see the trees of the Green Park, and the arch surmounted by the hideous statue of the 'Iron Duke,' and even the drowsy hum of the streets was the same as of old. Chute had seen vast and airy halls in the City of Palaces by the Hooghly; but, of late, much of his time had been spent under canvas, or in shabby straw-roofed bungalows; and now the double drawing-room of this splendid London house, though familiar enough to him, as we have said, appealed to his sense of costliness, with its rich furniture, its lofty mirrors, lace curtains, gilded cornices, statues, and jardinières, loading the atmosphere with the perfume of heliotrope and tea-roses, and brought home to him, by its details, the gulf that wealth on one hand, and unmerited misfortune on the other, had opened between him and Clare Collingwood. A rustle of silk was heard, and suddenly she stood before him. She was very, very pale, and while striving to conceal her emotion under the cool exterior enforced by good breeding, it was evident that the hand in which she held his card was trembling. But she presented the other frankly to Trevor Chute, and hastily begging him to be seated, bade him welcome to England, and skilfully threw herself into a sofa with her back to the light. 'We saw in the papers that your regiment was coming home, and then that it had landed at Portsmouth,' she remarked, after a brief pause, and Chute's heart beat all the more lightly that she seemed still to have some interest in his movements. 'Poor Ida,' she resumed, 'is confined to her room; Violet is at home,--you remember Violet? but I am so sorry that papa is out.' 'My visit was to him, or rather to Mrs. Beverley,' said Chute, with the slightest tinge of bitterness in his tone; 'and believe me that I should not have intruded at all on Sir Carnaby Collingwood but for the dying wish of my poor friend your brother-in-law.' 'Intruded! Oh, how can you speak thus, Captain Chute--and to _me_?' she asked in almost breathless voice, while her respiration became quicker, and a little flush crossed her pale face for a second.