'Some huge branches of roses concealed his figure from me, but his face was distinct enough, in closer proximity to hers than good breeding generally warrants. It was pale, very, with dark eyes and a black moustache--in detail, by Jove, Chute, the same fellow whom Colonel Rakes found eavesdropping in the conservatory! 'Startled, alarmed, and scarcely knowing what to think, I still resolved to join her. I could scarcely deem myself an intruder, considering the terms we had been on, and are on now, and approached the arbour, but in doing so had to make a circuit among the shrubberies. Half a minute had not elapsed when I reached the arbour; no one passed me on the walk, not a footfall was heard on the gravel, at least by me; but when I joined her she was alone, with her head stooped forward, her face buried in her hands, and when she looked up its pallor startled me; yet her grey-blue, changeful, and lustrous eyes looked, and with a smile, into mine. '"Have I disturbed you?" I asked, scarcely knowing what to say. '"Disturbed me? Oh, no; I was done reading." '"But some one was with you." '"When?" '"Just now." '"Impossible!" '"I thought that some one was here," I said, in great perplexity. '"Oh no--but sit down and let us talk," said she, frankly. 'I thought of the face I had just seen so near her own. I was rendered dumb, as I felt my tenure of favour was too slight to risk offending her by further remark on a subject so singular; but I was pained, grieved, and bewildered to a degree beyond what words can express. I looked at her earnestly, and seeing her so pale, said: '"Are you not well, Ida?" '"Only in so far that one of those mysterious shudders which I feel at times came over me a minute ago." 'I am aware that she has complained of this emotion or sensation before, and that the best medical skill in town has failed to make anything of it. '"The odour of those flowers has perhaps affected you," said I, somewhat pettishly thrusting aside a bouquet tied by a white ribbon which lay near her. '"Oh no," she replied, "their perfume has always been a favourite of mine." 'They were stephanotis, and I have often heard it was a favourite flower with Beverley. '"From whom did you receive the bouquet?" I asked, but something indefinable in my tone attracted her. '"Vane--Jerry!" she exclaimed. "It was brought me by the gardener," she added, and her calm face and serene eye all spoke of one to whom doubt or further question would have been intolerable, and the fear of anything unknown. Did she know what I had seen, or suspect what was passing in my mind? It would seem not; and still more was I perplexed and startled on perceiving, as we rose to join Clare, Violet, and others who were proceeding laughingly to the croquet lawn, a gentleman's glove lying on the seat which she had just quitted. '"Some one has dropped this," said I, taking it up. '"I never observed it," she replied, quietly; "is it not your own?"