‘Miss Spenceley, have you forgotten me? Won’t you look at me?’ She started violently from her stooping attitude, and, leaving the recalcitrant Jacky to his fate, at last turned to him. ‘Mr. Mallory, I--I--how you surprised me!’ she stammered, looking at first so pale and startled that he was surprised. He was shocked too, after the first glance, at the change, the sad, mournful change, in her face. ‘You do know me again,’ he said; ‘at least you might shake hands with me. I fear you are not pleased to renew our acquaintance.’ He had taken her hand, and as his fingers touched hers, Helena’s paleness fled, and crimson dyed her cheeks. Tears rushed to her eyes; her lips opened, but she did not speak. His eyes were still fixed upon her face; he could not remove them; he did not realise that his prolonged gaze distressed her. He felt unaccountably glad to meet her, pleased, excited, light-hearted, as if he had a great deal to say to her and ask her. He forgot all about his engagements--about returning to the station, or going home; he wanted to talk to her, to hear her speak, to find out all about her. The colour gradually died out of her cheeks, and then became again apparent the change these two years had wrought in her. She was thin, decidedly thin, compared with the full if delicate beauty of past days; there were hollows in her cheeks, and under her great dark eyes; there was a painful line about her lips, and a melancholy, which looked as if it were settled, in her expression. She looked, what he had never thought she could look, patient and subdued--not the impulsive, fiery-hearted girl whom he had known and teased and quarrelled with. Her dress, he also saw, was sadly altered. Helena had always had a weakness for splendid things: she delighted in a rich colour, a soft silk, a sheeny satin--in all kinds of luxurious, and beautiful, and fashionable things. Formerly people used to laugh at this weakness. Other girls, whose fathers had not been so rich as Mr. Spenceley, used to turn up their noses, and say that she was vulgarly ostentatious; that it was exceedingly bad taste in a girl to dress herself as splendidly as a dowager, and so on. In truth, it had been no bad taste at all. The splendour was part of her nature--one phase of her individuality; it belonged to her as much as her queenly shape and melodious voice. But now--there was no splendour in that dress, of poor material and last year’s fashion. The silk mantle had been handsome once--perhaps it was a relic of palmier days; now its shape was antiquated, and it was too good for the poorness of the rest of the toilette. The glove on the hand, which Sebastian still continued to hold, had been often mended. Helena looked what she used to have the strongest objection to--poor, shabby, and unprosperous, her good looks faded---- But not gone. No. Sebastian, staring on in the same rude and reprehensible manner, satisfied himself that her beauty was only clouded over, not vanished.