"A fine opening," muttered Jack. Leonard Dagle evidently did not hear him. "Well, she started when I approached her, and merely thanked me with a bow, but I was determined not to let her go this time, and I said, 'Pardon me, but we have met before.' 'Where?' said she. 'In a railway carriage,' I said, and she looked at me, and trembled. 'I remember,' she said, and I swear I saw her shudder. 'Since then,' I said, 'I have sought you far and near.' 'Why should you do that?' she asked." "A very natural question," interjected Jack. "Then I told her. I told her that from that hour I had been unable to rid my mind of her face, that it had haunted me; that I had followed her and learned her address; and that though I had lost her I had sought her all over London." "Was she angry?" asked Jack. "At first she was," said Leonard, "very angry, but something in my voice or my face--Heaven knows I was earnest enough! convinced her that I meant no harm, and she listened." "Well," said Jack, interested and excited. "Well," said Leonard, "we sat talking for an hour, perhaps more, and she has promised to meet me again; at least she admitted that she walked in the park every afternoon. I tried to get her address, but she told me plainly that she would not give it to me." "And is that all you learned?" asked Jack, with something like good-natured contempt. "No!" replied Leonard. "I learned that she had been injured--oh, not in the way you think--and that she had some purpose to effect--some wrong to right." "And of course you offered to help her?" said Jack. "I offered to help her; I laid my services, my whole time and strength, at her disposal; I went so far as to beseech her to tell me what this purpose, this wrong was; but she would not tell me, and so we parted. But we are to meet again. She is much changed; paler and thinner than when I saw her in the railway carriage, but still more beautiful in my eyes than any other woman in the world." "It is a strange affair," mused Jack. "Quite a romance in its way. Isn't it funny, Len, that both our love affairs should be romantic, and so much alike!" "Yes," said Leonard, "very. But mine has scarcely begun, while yours has ended happily, or will do so, if you do not play the fool!" "What do you mean?" asked Jack, sharply. "Where have you been to-night?" asked Leonard. "To the theater with Lady Bell." "I expected as much," said Leonard, and he fell to at his writing, and would say no more, though Jack stormed and raved. Meanwhile the Davenant party had, thanks to Stephen, made a comfortable journey. They found a carriage and pair waiting for them at the station; not the ramshackle vehicle of the old squire's time, but a new carriage from the best man in Long Acre, and they were rolled along the country lanes in a style Ralph Davenant would have marveled at. Presently they came in sight of the Hurst, and Mrs. Davenant uttered an exclamation. "Why, Stephen, it is altered!" she said.