He met Nora from time to time in the Hawthorns’ drawing-room; there was no other place under the circumstances of Trinidad where he was at all likely ever to meet her. Nora was more frankly kind to him now than formerly; she felt that to be cool or indifferent towards him before Edward and Marian might seem remotely like an indirect slight upon their own position. One afternoon he met her there accidentally, and she asked him, with polite interest, how his work on the flowers of Trinidad was getting on. The young doctor cast down his eyes and answered timidly that he had collected an immense number of specimens, and was arranging them slowly in systematic order. ‘And your music, Dr Whitaker?’ The mulatto stammered for a moment. ‘Miss Dupuy,’ he said with a slight hesitation, ‘I have—I have published the little piece—the Hurricane Symphony, you know—that I showed you once on board the _Severn_. I have published it in London. If you will allow me—I—I will present you, as I promised, with a copy of the music.’ ‘Thank you,’ Nora said. ‘How very good of you. Will you send it to me to Orange Grove, or—will you leave it here some day with Mrs Hawthorn?’ The mulatto felt his face grow hot and burning as he answered with as much carelessness as he could readily command: ‘I have a copy here with me—it’s with my hat in the piazza. If you will permit me, Mrs Hawthorn, I’ll just step out and fetch it. I brought it with me, Miss Dupuy, thinking it just possible I might happen to meet you here this morning.’ He didn’t add that he had brought it out with him day after day for the last fortnight, in the vain hope of chancing to meet her; and had carried it back again with a heavy heart night after night, when he had failed to see her in that one solitary possible meeting-place. Nora took the piece that he handed her, fresh and white from the press of a famous London firm of music-sellers, and glanced hastily at the top of the title-page for the promised dedication. There was none visible anywhere. The title-page ran simply: ‘Op. 14. Hurricane Symphony. Souvenir des Indes. By W. Clarkson Whitaker.’ ‘But, Dr Whitaker,’ Nora said, pouting a little in her pretty fashion, ‘this isn’t fair, you know. You promised to dedicate the piece to me. I was quite looking forward to seeing my name in big letters, printed in real type, on the top of the title-page!’ The mulatto doctor’s heart beat fast that moment with a very unwonted and irregular pulsation. Then she really wished him to dedicate it to her! Why on earth had he been so timorous as to strike out her name at the last moment on the fair copy he had sent to London for publication? ‘I thought, Miss Dupuy,’ he answered slowly, ‘our positions were so very different in Trinidad, that when I came here and felt how things actually stood, I—I judged it better not to put your name in conjunction with mine on the same title-page.’