“I beg your pardon, I thought Mr. Tottenham was here,” she said, dropping her veil, which she had raised on entering. Miss Lockwood sprang up from her chair which she pushed back with an appearance of flurry and excitement, which was either real or very well counterfeited; while Edgar, deeply vexed, he could scarcely have told why, to be found thus, rose too, and approached his old friend. He would have liked to put himself at her feet, to kiss her hand, to throw himself upon her old kindness, if not like a son with a mother, at least like a loyal servant of one of those queens of nature whom generous men love to serve like sons. But he dared not do this--he dared not exceed the bounds of conventional acquaintance. He went forward eagerly but timidly, holding out his hands. I cannot find words to say how bewildered Lady Augusta was by the sight of Edgar, or with what consternation she recognised him. Whatever the motive had been which had drawn to him the attention of the Tottenhams, Lady Augusta Thornleigh was altogether ignorant of it. She had no expectation of seeing him, no idea that he could cross her path again. The profound surprise, the rush of kindly feeling which the first sight of him called forth, the thrill of terror and sense of danger which accompanied it, made her tremble with sudden agitation. Good heavens! what was she to do? She could not decline to recognise him; her heart indeed yearned to him, the subject of so much misfortune; but all the new complications that his presence would produce, rose up before her as he approached and made her heart sick. Oh, if he would only take the hint given in her hesitating look, and the veil which she had dropped over her face! But Edgar was fond of his old friend. She was the sister of his hostess, and he had felt ever since he went to Tottenham’s that one day or other he must meet her. He tried even at that moment to forget that she was anything beyond an old friend and Lady Mary’s sister; he tried to put the thought out of his mind that she was the mother of Gussy, his only love; he tried to forget the former relations between them. He had not seen her since the day when, leaving his former home, a nameless being, without either future or past to console him, he had been touched to the heart by her hurried farewell. He was then in all the excitement of a great sacrifice; he was a hero, admired and pitied everywhere; he had been almost her son, and she had called him Edgar, and wept over him. What a difference! he was a stranger now, in a totally different sphere, fallen out of knowledge, out of sympathy, no longer a hero or representing any exciting break in the ordinary level of life; but a common man probably desirous of asking some favour, and one for whom all his former friends must have the troublesome sensation of feeling something ought to be done for--I do not know if this occurred to Edgar’s mind, who was little apt to make such claims, but it did occur to Lady Augusta.