Now, how it was that Fairfax should have suddenly leaped into her mind with as startling an effect as if he had come through the window, or down from the sky in bodily presence, I cannot pretend to tell. For a little while he had been her chief companion--her helpmate, so to speak--and, at the same time, her servant, watching her looks to see what he could do for her--ready to fly, on a moment’s notice, to supplement her services in the sick-room--making of himself, indeed, a sort of complement of her and other self, doing the things she could not do. He had been, not like Paul at home, for Paul had never been so ready and helpful, but like nothing else than a man-Alice, another half of her, understanding her before she spoke--doing what she wished by intuition. This had not lasted very long, it is true, but while it had lasted, it had been like nothing that Alice had ever known. She had said to herself often that she scarcely knew him. He had come into her life by accident, and he had gone out of it just as suddenly, and with an almost angry dismissal on her part. Scarcely knew him! and yet was there anybody that she knew half so well? Why Fairfax should have suddenly become, as it were, visible to her in the midst of her thoughts, she did not know. One moment she could see nothing but those closing walls around her--a barrier here, a barrier there; no way of escape. When all at once, in the twinkling of an eye, there was a glimmer in the darkness, an opening, and there he stood, looking at her tenderly, deprecating, yet with a gleam of humour in his eyes. “You won’t have anything to say to me,” he seemed to be saying; “but all the same, if you should think better of it, I am here.” It is impossible to tell the effect this sudden apparition, as confusing as if he had actually come in person, had upon Alice. She was so angry, that she beat her hands together in sudden rage--with whom--with herself? for if the treacherous heart within her conjured up the young man’s image, was it Mr. Fairfax’s fault? But it was against him that she threw out all that unnecessary anger. How dared he come when she wanted none of him! To intrude yourself into a girl’s presence when she does not want you is bad enough, but to leap thus into her imagination! it was insupportable. She struck her hands together with a kind of fury--it was a way she had--her cheeks grew crimson, her heart thumped quite unnecessarily against her breast. And all the time he seemed to stand and look at her not tragically, or with any heroic aspect (which did not belong to him), but with that half smiling, half upbraiding look, and always a little gleam of fun in his eyes. “If you should think better of it, I am always here.” The words she put into his mouth were quite characteristic of him. No high-flown professions of faithfulness and devotion could have said more.