Innocent had paid no attention to this colloquy; she received into her passive memory the voice and face of the man who had addressed her cousin; but she was not herself aware that she had done so. She was grieved when Frederick left her, and glad when he came back in a few minutes to ask if she would have anything. “No; only if you will come,” she said, putting out her hand. That was all she thought of. A kind of tremor had taken possession of her, not of expectation, for she was too passive to speculate--a thrill of the nerves as she approached the end of her journey. “You will not go away from me when we get there?” she said piteously. What with his disagreeable acquaintances, and his too clinging charge, poor Frederick had enough on his hands. “Of course, I shall not go away; but, Innocent, you must put me in the second place now,” he said, patting her shoulder kindly as he sat down beside her. The answer she made was to put her hand softly within his arm. I don’t think Mrs. Eastwood would have approved of it, and Frederick found it rather embarrassing, and hoped the old lady did not observe it who was in the other corner of the railway carriage; she dozed all the way to town, and he did not know her; but still a man does not like to look ridiculous. Otherwise it was not unpleasant of itself. And then Innocent’s bewildered eyes were dazzled by a blaze of lights, and noise, and crowding figures. Out of that she was put into the silence of a dingy cab, and left there, feeling unutterably lonely, and not at all sure that now at the last moment he had not forsaken her, while Frederick was absent looking after the luggage, that dismal concluding piece of misery after a long journey. By the time he came back to her she was crying, and sick with suspense and terror. And then came a last quick drive, through gleaming lights and intervals of darkness, by shop-windows and through dim lanes, till at last a door flew open in the gloom, sending forth light and warmth, and two figures rushed out of it and took her passive into their arms. She held Frederick fast with one hand while she gazed at them. This was how she came home. CHAPTER XI. AT HOME AND NOT AT HOME.