At dinner next day Constance heard that Fan was going out with Mrs. Churton to visit a neighbour. A bright look came into her expressive face, followed by a swift blush, but she said nothing, and after dinner went back to her room. As soon as the others had left the house she began to dress for a walk, paying a great deal more attention to herself at the glass than she was accustomed to do. Her luxuriant brown hair was brushed out and rearranged, her artful fingers allowing three or four small locks to escape and lie unconfined on her forehead and temples. She studied her face very closely, thinking a great deal about that peculiar shade of colour which she saw there. But her own face was so familiar to her, how could she tell what another would think of it, and whether to city eyes that brown tint would not make it look less like the face of a Rosalind than of an Audrey? With her dress she was altogether dissatisfied, and there was nothing to give a touch of beauty to it but a poor flower--a half-open rose--which she pinned on her bosom. Then she envied Fan her beautiful watch and chain, the half-score of rings, bangles, and brooches which Miss Starbrow had given her; and this reminded her of an ornament she possessed, an old-fashioned gold brooch with an amethyst in it, and which in the pride of philosophy she had looked on with a good deal of contempt. Now the rose was flung away, and the despised jewel put in its place. Taking her book and sunshade she finally left the house, and turned her steps towards the wood. Scarcely had she left the gate behind before a tumult of doubts and fears began to assail her. She was hurrying away alone to the wood, glad to be alone, solely to meet Mr. Chance. Would he not at once divine the reason of her strange readiness to obey his wishes? Could she in her present agitated state, with her cheek full of hot blushes, and her heart throbbing so that it almost choked her, hide her secret from him? This thought frightened her and she slackened her pace, and argued that it would be better not to go to the wood, not to run the risk of such a self-betrayal and humiliation. But perhaps he would not come after all to meet her, for no appointment had been made, and no promise of any kind given--why should she be so anxious in her mind about it? It gave her a pang to think that the meeting and conversation which had been so important an event in her life were perhaps very little to him, that they were perhaps fading out of his mind already, and would soon be, like his botanical knowledge, altogether forgotten. Perhaps he was even now on the road speeding away far from Eyethorne on his bicycle. Then the fear that she might betray her secret was overmastered by this new fear that she would never see him again, that he had gone out of her life for ever; and she quickened her slow steps once more, and at last gaining the wood, and coming to the spot where she had parted from him,