The waiter disappeared: the post-boy came up--he touched his hat. "Wait," said Ethel;--"we must wait a little;" and he removed himself to the horses' heads. Ethel sat in her lonely corner, shrouded by fog and darkness, watching every face as it passed under the lamp near, fancying that Edward might appear among them. The ugly faces that haunt, in quick succession, the imagination of one oppressed by night-mare, might vie with those that passed successively in review before Ethel. Most of them hurried on, looking neither to the right nor left. Some entered the house; some glanced at her carriage: one or two, perceiving a bonnet, evidently questioned the waiter. He stood there for her own service, Ethel thought; and she watched his every movement--his successive disappearances and returns--the people he talked to. Once she signed to him to come; but--"No, ma'am, the porter is not come back yet,"--was all his answer. At last, after having stood, half whistling, for some five minutes, (it appeared to Ethel half-an-hour,) without having received any visible communication, he suddenly came up to the carriage door, saying, "The porter could not stay to speak to you, ma'am, he was in such a hurry. He says, Mr. Villiers lodges in Duke Street, St. James's: he should know the house, but has forgotten the number." "Then I must wait till he comes back again. I knew all that before. Will he be long?" "A long time, ma'am; two hours at least. He said that the woman of the house is a widow woman--Mrs. Derham." Thus, as if by torture, (but, as with the whipping boys of old, her's was the torture, not the delinquent's,) Ethel extracted some information from the stupid, conceited fellow. On she went to Duke Street, to discover Mrs. Derham's residence. A few wrong doors were knocked at; and a beer-boy, at last, was the Mercury that brought the impatient, longing wife, to the threshold of her husband's residence. Happy beer-boy! She gave him a sovereign: he had never been so rich in his life before;--such chance-medleys do occur in this strange world! CHAPTER XVI O my reviving joy! thy quickening presence Makes the sad night Sit like a youthful spring upon my blood. I cannot make thy welcome rich enough With all the wealth of words. MIDDLETON. The boy knocked at the door. A servant-girl opened it. "Does Mr. Villiers lodge here?" asked the postillion, from his horse. "Yes," said the girl. "Open the door quickly, and let me out!" cried Ethel, as her heart beat fast and loud. The door was opened--the steps let down--operations tedious beyond measures, as she thought. She got out, and was in the hall, going up stairs. "Mr. Villiers is not at home," said the maid. Through the low blinds of the parlour window, Mrs. Derham had been watching what was going on. She heard what her servant said, and now came out. "Mr. Villiers is not at home," she reiterated; "will you leave any message?" "No; I will wait for him. Show me into his room."