At one moment it seemed as if years must have elapsed since he lost his way and forced an entrance at the woodman's hut, at another he was half inclined to believe that he had dined rather heavily at the club and dreamed it all. Like Una, he could not realize that they had met, touched hands and exchanged speech. Jack could not get the beautiful face out of his mental vision; it mingled with the wan face of the dying man, with Stephen's pale, distorted countenance; it seemed to beam and shine upon him from the dark corners of the room with the same frank, pure, innocent smile with which it had shone down upon him as he lay at her feet in the woods. And then the girl's surroundings! The extraordinary father, with his laborer's dress and his refined speech and bearing. What mystery enveloped the little group of persons buried in the depths of a wood, living apart from the world? Jack rumpled his hair and drew a long breath eloquent of confusion and bewilderment. It was certainly extraordinary! Three days ago he had left London, prosaic London, and was now plunged to the neck in a sea of romance and secrecy. On one thing he was, however, resolved. He would keep his threat or promise. He would go to Warden Forest and see that beautiful face again, though he had to brave the anger of twenty mysterious woodmen. He thought at first that he would start on the morrow, but some feeling--perhaps some reverence and respect for the dead man--made him change his mind. "No," he said to himself, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and prepared for bed; "I'll stay here over the funeral, and then----" But, though he felt tired and worn out, it was hours before he could sleep, and when he did, his spirit fled back to Warden Forest, and the face that had haunted him waking hovered about him in dreams. Was it love; love at first sight? Jack would have been first to laugh at the idea; but it is worthy of note that all the loves which had occurred in his wild, reckless life had never, in their warmest epochs, moved him as the remembrance of Una had done; not one had had the power to disturb his sleep or to bring him dreams. Jack kept to his resolution. Five days passed, and he stuck to the "Bush" manfully. They were, perhaps, the dreariest days he ever spent in his life, and he never thought of them afterward without a shudder. Every day he was tempted to take flight and go to London until the day of the funeral; but his promise to Hudsley kept him at his post. He would not even leave the "Bush." On the first day, a note, written on the deepest of mourning paper, had come from Stephen, begging him to come to the Hurst; but he had written a firm and what was for him a polite refusal. Of Stephen himself he saw nothing. Mr. Hudsley had also sent, and asked him to stay at his house; and this, too, Jack had declined.