Frances ate a mournful little dinner alone, after the agitations to which she had been subject. Her mother did not return; and Markham, who had been expected up to the last moment, did not appear. It was unusual to her now to spend so many hours alone, and her mind was oppressed not only by the strange scene with Nelly Winterbourn, but more deeply still by Claude’s news. George Gaunt had always been a figure of great interest to Frances; and his appearance here in the world which was as yet so strange, with his grave, indeed melancholy face, had awakened her to a sense of sympathy and friendliness which no one had called forth in her before. He was as strange as she was to that dazzling puzzle of society, sat silent as she did, roused himself into interest like her about matters which did not much interest anybody else. She had felt amid so many strangers that here was one whom she could always understand, whose thoughts she could follow, who said what she had been about to say. It made no difference to Frances that he had not signalled her out for special notice. She took that quietly, as a matter of course. Her mother, Markham, the other people who appeared and disappeared in the house, were all more interesting, she felt, than she; but sometimes her eyes had met those of Captain Gaunt in sympathy, and she had perceived that he could understand her, whether he wished to do so or not. And then he was Mrs Gaunt’s youngest, of whom she had heard so much. It seemed to Frances that his childhood and her own had got all entangled, so that she could not be quite sure whether this and that incident of the nursery had been told of him or of herself. She was more familiar with him than he could be with her. And to hear that he was unhappy, that he was in danger, a stranger among people who preyed upon him, and yet not to be able to help him, was almost more than she could bear.