"You should have come by Wareborough again," suggested Gerald. "I am sure Mrs Dalrymple would have been delighted to see you." "Next time, perhaps," answered Roma. Then she added, with a smile, "I am quite getting to like Wareborough--or, at least, some of the people in it--though I used to think it such a dreadful place." Suddenly something in her own words made her blush and feel ashamed of herself. "I must go to Eugenia," she said, hastily, leaving the room rather abruptly as she spoke. "I wonder what there is about that Mr Thurston that always makes me behave in his presence like an underbred schoolgirl?" she thought to herself, as she went upstairs. Barely five minutes--certainly not ten--had passed when the door of the room where Gerald was waiting opened, and Eugenia herself appeared. He had turned, expecting to see Roma again; a slight constraint was immediately perceptible in his manner when he saw who the new-comer was. The last time he had seen her had been on her marriage day. At first sight he hardly thought her much altered. She did not look ill, for the excitement of Roma's news, the eagerness to hear more, had brought a bright colour to her cheeks. When it faded again he saw how pale she really was. "Oh, Gerald!" she exclaimed, with all her old winning impulsiveness, "how good of you to come! How very good of you t Of course I shall go back with you at once. And Roma tells me there is no actual cause for more anxiety? You are sure of that, are you not, Gerald?" He repeated to her word for word what the doctor had said to him that morning. She felt he was speaking the truth, and seemed satisfied. "I expect Beauchamp in directly," she said, looking at her watch. "He will probably want to take me home himself, but I shall try to persuade him not. He is going out to dinner to-night. It will be quite unnecessary for him to come. I shall tell him he may come to fetch me if he likes." She spoke confidently, but with a certain nervous hurry of manner new to her, and that did not escape Gerald's observation. Just then Roma joined them. A sudden thought struck Eugenia. "You have had nothing to eat, Gerald," she exclaimed. "Roma, dear, would you ring and order some luncheon in the dining-room? I think I must run upstairs again and hasten Rachel. She is not accustomed to sudden moves." Captain Chancellor came home from his ride about the time he was expected. He was a very punctual man. He came in at a side door, without ringing. The first sign of life that met him as he crossed the hall, was the sight, through the half-open dining-room door, of an entertainment of some kind going on within. An impromptu repast at which the only guest was a stranger, a man, that was all Beauchamp could see, for the unknown was sitting with his back to him, but as he looked, a still more astonishing sight met his eyes, Roma, no less a person than Roma, was keeping the stranger company!