‘Oh, we must not talk of anything to-day, but how to get this settled,’ cried the girl, with a nervous shiver. ‘What a trouble for your mother, to see all these people to-day. I could not stay to help her--it seemed impossible; but she--she could not be unkind to anyone,’ said Cara, with generous fervour; though indeed Mrs. Meredith, unwittingly, had strewn a few thorns in Cara’s pathway too. ‘Yes,’ said Edward; ‘I don’t think my mother is a humbug--at least, yes, she is, in the way of kindness. She can’t bear that anyone should feel neglected--and yet she means it, too,’ he added, doubtfully looking up at the window, at which some of her visitors showed, for the day was very warm. Her friends had flooded back upon her, notwithstanding her recent widowhood. It was not like going into society, they all said. Society, indeed, went to her instead. To desert her in her troubles was not a friend’s part. The consequence of this doctrine was that her receptions were almost as crowded as ever, and that all who considered themselves her intimates were more punctual than ever they had been. ‘Ought we not to go?’ said Cara at last, and they turned and came out through the dusty bushes once more. The Square was not lovely in itself, but it looked like a garden of Eden to the two, when they had been walking in the cool of the day, like Adam and Eve, thinking of each other, talking, with little breaks and relapses into thoughts which were dangerous, but very sweet, of other things. Now they came out again, side by side. As they crossed the road, Roger Burchell joined them. He had been sent for, and had hurried up, poor fellow, to do his duty, and look for his lost sister. It was not a happy errand to begin with, nor was it exactly happiness for him to see Cara, though the thought of doing so had lent wings to his feet. He looked at her with a face full of suppressed agitation, longing and yet suspicious. This was not the Meredith he was afraid of--this was the one with whom he was rather in sympathy, the unfortunate one, like himself. But there was something in the looks of the two which hurt Roger and angered him, he could scarcely have told why. He addressed Edward rather roughly. ‘If you are going after them, tell me,’ he said, with a hoarse tone in his voice, ‘or I will do it. There is no time to lose.’ ‘I am waiting only for the train,’ said Edward. It was a valid excuse enough, and poor Roger felt that he might have waited hours for the train without being amused meantime in this heavenly fashion. The gate of the garden was at some little distance from the house, close to the thoroughfare which passed along the end of the Square. They could see along this line of road as they turned to go back. ‘We must go for Mr. Beresford,’ Edward was saying. ‘He was to go with us first to the House.’