Burgoyne being, as I have said, in the hall, and therefore nearest the door of entrance, has the earliest sight of them. His first glance tells him that the blow apprehended by Mrs. Le Marchant has fallen. Of Elizabeth, indeed, he scarcely catches a glimpse, as she passes him precipitately, hurrying to meet her mother, who, at the sound of her voice, has come running into the outer room. But Byng! Byng has not experienced so many very strong emotions in his short life as to have had much practice in veiling them from the eyes of others when they come, and the gauze now drawn over his intolerable radiance is of the thinnest description. Again that earnest desire to hit him _hard_ assails the elder friend. "Why, you are back before us!" cries the young man. "Yes, we are back before you," replies Burgoyne; and if the penalty had been death, he could not at that moment have added one syllable to the acrid assent. "Are we late?" asks Elizabeth tremulously; "I am afraid we are late--I am afraid we have kept you waiting! Oh, I am so sorry!" She looks with an engaging timidity of apology from one to other of the sulky countenances around her; and Burgoyne stealing a look at her, their eyes meet. He is startled by the singularity of expression in hers. Whatever it denotes, it certainly is not the stupid simplicity of rapture to be read, in print as big as a poster's, in Byng's. And yet, among the many ingredients that go to make up that shy fevered beam, rapture is undoubtedly one. "Did you lose yourselves? Did you go further into the wood?" asks Cecilia, with a curiosity that is, considering the provocation given, not unjustifiable. They both reply vaguely that they had lost themselves, that they had gone deeper into the wood. It is obvious to the meanest intelligence that neither of them has the slightest idea where they have been. "I may as well tell the driver to put the horses in," says Burgoyne, in a matter-of-fact voice, glad of an excuse to absent himself. When he comes back, he finds the Le Marchants standing together in the window, talking in a low voice, and Byng hovering near them. It is evident to Jim that the elder woman has no wish for converse with the young man; but in his present condition of dizzy exhilaration, he is quite unaware of that fact. He approaches her indeed (as the unobserved watcher notes) with a dreadful air of filial piety, and addresses her in a tone of apology it is true, but with a twang of intimacy that had never appeared in his voice before. "You must not blame her; indeed you must not! it was entirely my fault. I am awfully sorry that you were alarmed, but indeed there was no cause. What did you think had happened? Did you think"--with an excited laugh of triumph and a bright blush--"that I had run off with her?"