I’ve been wondering whether after all I need have sent that curt note to Sydney? Of course, I _was_ furious with him, first for coming too late, and secondly for proposing at all after I was powerless to accept him—he didn’t know that; but what a position he put me into! _Could_ I have put an end to it? (My thoughts raced on with the train.) _Could_ I have written that very evening to Mr. Waters, cancelling that preposterous arrangement with him, returning that lump sum of salary, and saying—— Impossible! A hundred pounds of that salary had had to go, irrevocably, as soon as I got it. And already I’d broken into that remaining four hundred in the bank! I couldn’t make up even that. How would it have been if when Sydney proposed to me, I had replied: “_I can’t see you. I can’t even tell you anything more, yet. But wait a year, and then ask me again_”? Since he’s “waited” _so_ long——! But no. That wouldn’t have done either. It wouldn’t be keeping my bargain. It would be “giving away” my compact with that other, that detestable man, who trusts after all to my word—and after all, Sydney _has_ got himself to thank for the fact that I haven’t been choosing a trousseau to please _him_.... * * * * * Well! There’s nothing in _this_ outfit, I hope, that won’t pass the censorship of the most critical glances in any big house—those of the servants. Men-servants, I suspect, are almost harder to “impress” than maid-servants. But it was no lordly groom or supercilious chauffeur who met me at Sevenoaks Station as I stepped out of the train. The tall, broad-shouldered figure that strode towards me looked, in a big, grey, loose motor-coat, so utterly different from the mind-picture of the slimly-built, dark, Vandyke-bearded young man that had travelled most of the way down with me, so different, too, from the other apparition I know only too well in immaculate “City” get-up, that at first I didn’t recognize him. Then a cap was lifted. I saw the fair hair, brushed sleek as satin, and the keen, blonde face of my employer. Several people on the platform were glancing at him as if he were almost as well known down here in the country as in Leadenhall Street. Then eagerly inquisitive glances were turned to me. I caught a whisper of “Mr. William Waters’ young lady!” I wondered if the speaker—a prosperous-looking sort of butcher—expected to overhear some tender greeting? How “sold” he’d have been! “Ah, there you are, Miss Trant!”—briskly as ever. “Good afternoon. What luggage have you? Porter, bring these things across to the car. I’m motoring you up to the house myself,” added Mr. Waters to me, as we left the station, “because there’s a little supplementary detail I wanted to ‘put you on to,’ so to speak, before you meet my people.” “Oh, yes?” I said inquiringly, and I mentally reached for my pencil and pad.