Hubert's anticipations were verified. Florence was not to be persuaded by anything that he could say. And, when he begged her to tell him why she wanted so much to stay at Beechfield, and hinted at the reason that existed in Miss Leonora's mind, Florence only laughed him to scorn. He was obliged sorrowfully to confess to Miss Vane, when she walked with him that afternoon before he set out for London, that he had obtained no information concerning Flossy's plans, and that he could hope to have no influence over her movements. He had five minutes to spare, and was urging her to walk with him a little way along the road that led to the nearest railway-station, when Miss Vane's attention was arrested by two little figures in the middle of the road. She stopped short, and pointed to them with her parasol. "Hubert," she cried, in a voice that was hoarse with dismay, "do you see that?" "I see Enid," said Hubert rather wonderingly. "I suppose she ought not to be here alone; she must have escaped from Florence. Why are you so alarmed? She is talking to a beggar-child--that is all." Miss Vane pressed his arm with her hand. "Are you blind?" she said. "Do you not know to whom she is talking? Can you bear to see it?" "Upon my soul, aunt Leo," said the young man, "I don't know what you mean!" He looked at the scene before him. The white country road stretched in an undulating line to right and left, its smooth surface mottled with patches of sunlight and tracts of refreshing shade. A broad margin of grass on either side, tall hedges of hawthorn and hazel, soothed the eye that might be wearied with the glare and whiteness of the road. On one of these grassy margins two children were standing face to face. Hubert recognised his little cousin Enid Vane, but the other--a sunburnt, gipsy-looking creature, with unkempt hair and ragged clothes--who could she be? "You were at the trial," Miss Vane whispered to him, in dismayed, reproachful tones. "Do you not know her? it is no fault of hers, poor child, of course; and yet it does give me a shock to see poor little Enid talking in that friendly way with the daughter of her father's murderer." For the child was no other than little Jenny Westwood, whom Hubert had seen for a few minutes only at her father's trial three weeks before. CHAPTER VI. Hubert stopped short. If Miss Vane had been looking at him, she would have seen that his face flushed deeply and then turned very pale. But she herself, with her gold eye-glasses fixed very firmly on the bridge of her high nose, was concentrating her whole attention upon the children. "Enid," she called out rather sharply, "what are you doing there? Come to me."