"I have not been for a walk," she said; "at least, I have walked, but not for walking’s sake. I have been calling upon Mr. Charteris." Helen looked surprised, as naturally she might. "Hazel!" she expostulated. "What purpose could you have had? He comes here so often. Could you not have asked my advice as to going? It looks a little odd—a young girl calling by herself," she added gently. "Paul will think it odd." She knew her child, and that slight reproof was enough—the least hint that intimated forwardness, in a way, too much; yet both must be given: such was a mother’s duty. The girl’s face flushed red, and hastily setting down her cup, she looked at her mother in mute distress. "Oh, surely not," she pleaded; "surely he thought it perfectly natural—just as I did, mother. I—I wanted to see him very particularly. I could not wait for him to come. If I had waited I might not have had the opportunity of saying what I wanted to say—it was about Hugh." "You found Hugh there, of course?" Helen interposed comfortingly. "That makes things better. May mothie come into the mystery about Hugh?" She had made the useful and necessary suggestion of incorrectness in her young daughter’s action, and knew that she need say no more upon the subject—that she might with safety pour oil upon the little wound she had perforce inflicted, and bind it up to her child’s comfort: for the sensitive girl would not so err again. But the kind words, spoken to bring consolation, brought instead new apprehension to Hazel. "He was in the house," she admitted: "but he was not——" She broke off, of a sudden recollecting how Paul had proposed Hugh’s presence, and how she had forbidden it. "Mr. Charteris wanted to call him and I would not let him. Oh, do you believe he will think me a horrid, bold sort of person?" and she looked beseechingly for her mother’s reply. Helen had difficulty in restraining a smile, as her eyes rested upon her daughter’s face: the idea of the possessor of that face being considered a "horrid, bold sort of person" proving almost too ludicrous for the maintenance of gravity: delicate, sensitive, refined, beautiful as a flower; just now tremulous, beseeching. "No," she admitted, after what was to Hazel an agonised pause, "I don’t think he will." And the smile had its way. "But tell me, dearie, why you went at all." So Hazel told all, beginning at Uncle Percival’s uncomfortable and startling suggestion, that Paul Charteris was giving in charity to the Le Mesuriers, through the medium of the "worthless young man"—Hugh. She had before told her mother of the visit to her uncle; and Helen, half amused, half concerned, had not wholly disapproved of her girl’s spiritedness; but this portion of the conversation during that visit Hazel had before omitted to report, not wishing to anger her mother against Mr. Desborough, or indeed to disturb her peace of mind until she, Hazel, had first ascertained the truth.