'It is my fault for detaining you,' said Maurice, concerned to see her look of distress. 'Let me walk to the theatre with you.' 'But I've some things to carry,' she answered, hurriedly rolling up some finery which had bestrewed a side table—veil, shoes, ribbons, feathers, a dilapidated fan. 'I am not afraid of carrying a parcel.' They went out together, Justina breathless, and hurried to the stage door. Maurice penetrated some dark passages, and stumbled up some break-neck stairs, in his anxiety to learn if his companion were really late. The band was grinding away at an overture. The second piece had not begun. 'Is it all right?' asked Maurice, just as the light figure that had sped on before him was disappearing behind a dusky door. 'Yes,' cried Justina, 'I don't go on till the second scene. I shall have just time to dress.' So Mr. Clissold groped his way to the outer air, relieved in mind. It was a still summer evening, and this part of the city had a quiet, forgotten air, as of a spot from which busy life had drifted away. The theatre did not create any circle of animation and bustle in these degenerate days, and seen from the outside might have been mistaken for a chapel. There were a few small boys hanging about near the stage door as Mr. Clissold emerged, and these, he perceived, looked at him with interest and spoke to one another about him. He was evidently known, even to these street boys, as the man who had been suspected of his friend's murder. He walked round to the quiet little square in front of the theatre, lighted his pipe, and took a turn up and down the empty pavement, meditating what he should do with himself for the rest of the evening. Last night he had slept placidly enough in the mediæval jail, worn out with saddest thoughts. To-night there was nothing for him to do but go back to the 'Waterfowl,' where the rooms would seem haunted—put his few belongings together, and get ready for going back to London. His holiday was over, and how sad the end! He had been very fond of James Penwyn. Only now, when they two were parted for ever, did he know how strong that attachment had been. The bright young face, the fresh, gay voice, all gone! 'I am not quick at making friendships,' thought Maurice. 'I feel as if his death had left me alone in the world.' His life had been unusually lonely, save for this one strong friendship. He had lost his father in childhood, and his mother a few years later. Happily Captain Clissold, although a younger son, had inherited a small estate in Devonshire, from his mother. This gave his orphan son four hundred a year—an income which permitted his education at Eton and Oxford, and which made him thoroughly independent as a young man, to whom the idea of matrimony and its obligations seemed far off.