The house in which she now sat below stairs, while Ariadne Thorne was upstairs in the parlour, was one that the gentry of the county of Hampshire were in the habit of using when in London, it being an instance of the numerous better class of lodgings which were to be obtained in the town at the end of the reign of George II. It also was near the House of Commons, and had been handy for General Thorne during the time he sat in that assembly. But now that Parliament was not sitting, and when Ariadne had come to London, ostensibly with a view to visiting the mercers and other furnishers of ladies' necessaries, there were no other occupants of the house but herself and those who had accompanied her. Presently Mrs. Pottle roused herself from a nap to which she had succumbed--perhaps owing to the heat of the summer day!--and regarded a clock that ticked in the parlour which she used in common with other ladies' servants and gentlemen's gentlemen when the house had lodgers. "Five o'clock," she muttered, "five o'clock, and the Portsmouth coach is doo in the city by now. If Sir Geoffrey's coming, he'll be here by this, or soon. His frigate ain't started on no voyage, I'll go bail; not with that wind a-blowing. Will he come? Will he? He see that villain, Bufton, sure enough in the avenue, and he heerd her say to me as 'ow he had seen him. Pity! Pity! Might 'a' spoilt all. Lawk's sakes, what will she tell him when he do see her?" Again she dozed, sitting in her chair; then, when perhaps she had slumbered peacefully for some quarter of an hour, she sprang to her feet wide awake, for, above, she had heard a hackney coach rumble up to the door. And, a moment later, had also heard the rush of feet across the room, and knew, divined, with woman's instinct, that Ariadne had flown to the window to peer out from behind the heavy curtains and to observe if he for whom she was waiting had come. In another instant, Mrs. Pottle was running up the narrow stairs from below to open the door in answer to an imperious summons that sounded through the house. With almost a look of guilt, a half look of terror, on her face, she answered the question of Sir Geoffrey Barry as to whether her mistress was within; she seeing, as she glanced at him, that he was very pale--as pale as he who was so bronzed could be--and that on his face was a stern look. "Your mistress," he said, "has sent for me. I am here in answer to her summons. Where is she?" "She is 'ere, Sir Jaffray," Mrs. Pottle said, opening the door of the parlour and announcing him. And then those two who had loved each other so fondly and so long were alone face to face. "How lovely she is!" Geoffrey thought, observing the sad, pale face of the girl and her soft eyes as they were fixed on him; observing, too, however, how one white hand was pressed to her heart as though to still the tumult beneath. "How lovely, and--how false."