Durant replied to the “Good-night” with a suppressed laugh, and walked away into the darkness with Arthur following. Though the freshness of the night was so great a relief after the heat indoors, it was not genial, but penetrating and dull, with a shrewish touch, such as October often has; and the skies were dull with no moon, nothing but drifting clouds, and the street of the little town was not attractive. They walked on in silence together for some time, the stranger being occupied longer than was necessary in lighting his cigar; but he had no sooner managed this successfully than he threw it away again. “Come to the inn, Arthur,” he cried; “it’s comfortless work talking here.” CHAPTER II. The inn at Underhayes was not much to speak of, but the parlour in which the two friends talked was larger than Mrs. Bates’s parlour, where all the family assembled and all their existence was past. Durant sat down at the table to consume a simple dinner, a hastily-cooked chicken, which he had ordered after his journey, and which was not so savoury as the supper which Mrs. Bates would have given him; nor was it so cheerful a meal. While he ate, Arthur Curtis paced back and forward at the other end of the room, which, with its bare carpet and scant furniture, was still less objectionable than the room they had left, the place where all his happiness had lain so long. Perhaps if the shock had come sooner some deliverance would have been possible, though at the cost of a heartbreak; but nothing was possible now except to carry out his engagement. Lewis Durant was both honourable and high-minded, yet he had come with no better intention than to prevent his friend from keeping his word, with very little regard for the word and none at all for the happiness of the other person who was chiefly concerned. Happiness of a girl who had entangled a young man so much above herself! what was that to anybody? If she should be robbed of her happiness, why, was it not all her own fault? But he had not been so injudicious yet as to broach this idea; he was approaching it gradually, “acquiring information” on the subject. Of course it was natural that any one so interested in Arthur’s affairs as he was, should like to know all about it, and he had seen Lady Curtis herself he did not conceal from his friend, and the anxious mother was “in a great way.” “I’d like to take up satisfactory news, old fellow,” he said; “both for their sake and my own.” “What do you call satisfactory news?” said Arthur. His mind was in an unexampled commotion. His old life and his new had come into active conflict, and he himself seemed to be the puppet between them. But in the midst of the excitement caused by this bringing back of all the habits of his former existence, the poor young fellow was miserable at the thought of having come away from his love without a kind word, without a look even, which could stand in the place of their usual Good-night.