"I had to change my dress," Ariadne said, glancing up at him. "I wore a darker one but lately, and it got torn. Otherwise I should not have failed." Then she asked, as now they entered the great saloon to which a domestic had by this time brought a large branch-candelabra, in which were a dozen white wax candles, "How is it you have come so late? What is there to do at Portsmouth that should keep you from me?" "Much. You know, sweetheart, that I have gotten a ship. No great affair at present--a small frigate, a capture; yet the time is coming. France itches for another great defeat; she is never satisfied! Soon it will come, And then, my Ariadne---- Ah!" he said, breaking off, "ah! I see you have already been taking the air to-night," and he directed her eyes to a dark hood lying on a table close by. "Did you get your dress torn in the bushes of the park?" "No," she said. "No. I have not been out since the afternoon. But if I go with you partway down the avenue, the hood will be necessary. The dews are heavy sometimes on these summer nights," and she lifted her soft eyes to his. "You have had a visitor," he said, as now he took a place by her side on a vast couch in the saloon. "A person----" "I have had no visitor here to-day, Geoffrey," she said, interrupting him. "Why should you suppose that?" "No one to see you?" "No one. Why do you ask?" And there came now a blush upon her face, a deeper colour than before. "I met," he said, "a man who, without doubt, hinted that he had been to see you." "It is impossible!" she exclaimed. "Impossible, perhaps, that he saw you. Undoubtedly possible, however, that I saw him--and--and--conversed with him. A gallant spark, too, if rich clothes and gauds make a man such. A gentleman figged out in London fashion, scarlet coat, yellow peruke, and such things. One who might be a rich man, if, too, such things mean wealth." "Geoffrey!" the girl cried, and now he saw that she had turned very white. "I cannot understand. And--and--you conversed with him. What, then, did he say?" "He said," her lover continued, "on my asking him if he had not lost his way, if he had not wandered by accident into private property, that it was possible you might receive other visitors sometimes than the rural inhabitants of this place." "Oh!" Ariadne exclaimed. "It is impossible! Impossible! He must have been some stranger--some man who had been drinking----" "He had not been drinking," Geoffrey answered, with quiet emphasis. "Who, then, could he have been?" she asked now, while he saw that she was still very white; whiter even than before. He felt certain, too, that her hands were trembling. "Could he be lurking here with a view to entering the house at night?" she added. "Not in that apparel." "Then seeking one of the maids. Perhaps 'twas that. There are evil men everywhere, men of rank and wealth, who---- Oh!" she exclaimed, "I will summon Mrs. Pottle;" and so speaking, she went towards the bell-pull and rang it.