The circumstances under which it had been lent to him came back very clearly now. It was after that visit to his friend which had come so unhappily between him and Adela. When he went to bid her good-bye he found her alone, and she was reading this book. She spoke of it, and, in surprise that he had never read it, begged him to take it to Oxford. ‘I have another copy,’ Adela said. ‘You can return that any time.’ The time had only now come. Hubert resolved to take the book to Wanley in the evening; if no other means offered, Mr. Wyvern would return it to the owner. Might he enclose a note? Instead of that, he wrote out from memory two of his own sonnets, the best of those he had recently composed under the influence of the ‘Vita Nuova,’ and shut them between the pages. Then he made the book into a parcel and addressed it. He started for his walk at the same hour as on the evening before. There was frost in the air, and already the stars were bright. As he drew near to Wanley, the road was deserted; his footfall was loud on the hard earth. The moon began to show her face over the dark top of Stanbury Hill, and presently he saw by the clear rays that the figure of a woman was a few yards ahead of him; he was overtaking her. As he drew near to her, she turned her head. He knew her at once, for it was Letty Tew. He had been used to meet Letty often at the Walthams’. Evidently he was himself recognised; the girl swerved a little, as if to let him pass, and kept her head bent. He obeyed an impulse and spoke to her. ‘I am afraid you have forgotten me, Miss Tew. Yet I don’t like to pass you without saying a word.’ ‘I thought it was--the light makes it difficult--’ Letty murmured, sadly embarrassed. ‘But the moon is beautiful.’ ‘Very beautiful.’ They regarded it together. Letty could not help glancing at her companion, and as he did not turn his face she examined him for a moment or two. ‘I am going to see my friend Mr. Wyvern,’ Hubert proceeded. A few more remarks of the kind were exchanged, Letty by degrees summoning a cold confidence; then Hubert said-- ‘I have here a book which belongs to Miss Waltham. She lent it to me a year ago, and I wish to return it. Dare I ask you to put it into her hands?’ Letty knew what the book must be. Adela had told her of it at the time, and since had spoken of it once or twice. ‘Oh, yes, I will give it her,’ she replied, rather nervously again. ‘Will you say that I would gladly have thanked her myself, if it had been possible?’ ‘Yes, Mr. Eldon, I will say that.’ Something in Hubert’s voice seemed to cause Letty to raise her eyes again. ‘You wish me to thank her?’ she added; inconsequently perhaps, but with a certain significance. ‘If you will be so kind.’ Hubert wanted to say more, but found it difficult to discover the right words. Letty, too, tried to shadow forth something that was in her mind, but with no better success.