Sometimes, looking back upon such a meeting, Maude felt inclined to be angry with Mr. Lowther for having taken something of the old tone; but could she blame him for the lowered accents of his voice, the subdued light in his eyes, the unconscious tenderness into which he was betrayed in those public meetings, when she remembered how nobly he kept aloof from her in her home? Never yet had he presumed upon his intimacy with the husband in order to intrude himself on the presence of the wife. What harm or danger, then, if, in crowded assemblages, he surmounted all manner of small difficulties in order to make his way to her side? What could it matter if he lingered just a little longer than others, contriving all sorts of excuses for delay? It is rather a pleasant thing for a frivolous young married woman, serene in the consciousness of her own integrity, to know that a man’s heart is breaking for her in a gentlemanly way. A word too much, a tone, a look, and Maude would have taken alarm, and fled from her old admirer as from the venomous fangs of some deadly reptile; but Harcourt Lowther knew better than to speak that word. He had his own plans, and he was carrying them out in his own way: neither by word nor look had he ever yet offended Maude Tredethlyn; but now, when he tried to cut a path for himself through the crowd about her, he found less difficulty in the progress. People began to make way for him, and it was considered a settled thing that he should be found somewhere near her. He had not offended her; he had only--compromised her. Francis awoke before the hour at which his servant had been told to call him. The valet’s place was almost a sinecure, for the Cornishman still retained, of his old nature, the simple independent habits of a man who can wait upon himself. He got up at four o’clock, and had nearly completed his toilet, when the servant brought the soda and brandy prescribed by Harcourt Lowther. “And if you please, sir, you were to be so good as to remember an appointment with Mr. Lowther at half-past five, and was to please to drive the mail phaeton,” said the valet, while his master drank the revivifying beverage. “Very good,” muttered Mr. Tredethlyn, with something like a groan; “you may go and order the phaeton for five o’clock. Is Mrs. Tredethlyn at home?” “No, sir.” The man departed, and Francis finished dressing. He had ten minutes to spare after putting on his outer coat, and he sat down to look at the newspaper which lay ready cut on his writing-table. He took up the “Times,” but only stared vacantly at the advertisement sheet. His head still ached, in spite of a shower-bath and a vigorous application of hard hair-brushes; but his intellect was a good deal clearer than it had been before he dressed. Suddenly, out of the advertisement sheet, vivid as the figure of Banquo at Macbeth’s uncomfortable supper-party, there arose before him a face--a wan, faded face--in a white muslin-cap.