He was so absorbed in these thoughts that he took no note of the few people about. These were very few, for though the night was as warm as it was bright, it was yet late in the season, and the rheumatic people thought there was a chill in the air. By degrees even the few figures that had been visible at first dwindled away, and Rivers at last awoke to the consciousness that there was but one left, a lady in black, very slight, very light of foot, for whose coming he was scarcely ever prepared when she appeared, and who shrank into the shadow as he came up, as if to avoid his eye. Something attracted him in this mysterious figure, he could not tell what, a subtile sense of some link of connection between her and himself; some internal and unspoken suggestion which quickened his eyes and interest, but which was too indefinite to be put into words. Who could she be? Where had he seen her? he asked, catching a very brief, momentary glimpse of her face; but he was a man who knew everybody, and it was little wonder if the names of some of his acquaintances should slip out of his recollection. It afforded him a sort of occupation to watch for her, to calculate when in the round of the garden which she seemed to be making she would come to that bare bit of road, disclosed by the opening in the trees, where the moonlight revealed in a white blaze everything that passed. He was for the moment absorbed in this pursuit--for it was in reality a pursuit, a sort of hunt through his own mind for some thread of association connected with a wandering figure like this--when some one else, a new-comer, came hastily into the garden, and established himself at a table close by. There was no mistaking this stranger--a robust young Englishman still in his travelling dress, whom Rivers recognized with mingled satisfaction and hostility. He was not then spending the evening with Rosalind, this young fellow who was not worthy to be admitted to her presence. That was a satisfaction in its way. He had been received to dinner because he came with the boy, but that was all. Young Hamerton sat down in the full moonlight where no one could make any mistake about him. He recognized Rivers with a stiff little bow. They said to each other, “It is a beautiful night,” and then relapsed respectively into silence. But in the heat of personal feeling thus suddenly evoked, Rivers forgot the mysterious lady for a moment, and saw her no more. After some time the new-comer said to him, with a sort of reluctant abruptness, “They are rather in trouble over there,” making a gesture with his hand to indicate some locality on the other side of the darkly waving trees. “In trouble--” “Oh, not of much importance, perhaps. The children--have all been--upset; I don’t understand it quite. There was something that disturbed them--in the hotel here. Perhaps you know--” “I only arrived this evening,” Rivers said.