Very few words passed between John Beacham and his wife as they were rattled along the busy thoroughfares leading from the Waterloo station to quiet Stanwick-street. A station cab is never a favourable locality for dialogue, and the fares on the present occasion appeared better pleased to be silent than to talk. Jingle, jingle went the wheels, and clatter, clatter, the ill-fitting window-frames, whilst every jerking, jolting moment brought them nearer to what would be alike a pain and a relief to both--separation! At last--the time had seemed both long and short--the cab, leaving the northern precincts of the Park, turned into the dull, respectable little street where Honor was to find a temporary home. “No. 14!” John shouted, with his head out of the window, and in another moment they pulled up before the Colonel’s door. The last adieux were made--as such final farewells usually are--very hurriedly, and in a decidedly unsatisfactory fashion. It had been Honor’s settled purpose to give utterance to some kind words ere they parted--to say something--what, she knew not--that would be regretful and conciliatory; something that would make her own heart lighter when _he_ should be far away. But partings, hasty partings especially, are something like death-bed repentances. There is hurry and flurry, there is alarm and confusion, there is the consciousness of having so much to do, and so short a time in which to do it. At that moment, when poor John pressed his wife’s delicate fingers with a hand moist with heat and emotion, the presence of the parlour-maid, and the duty of seeing to Honor’s various belongings, checked any loving words that might have been hovering on his tongue, and almost before the object of his anxious solicitude had responded to his final “God bless you!” the vehicle, with John inside, had driven off, and Honor was left alone. CHAPTER XX. SILENT SORROW. A good deal to her surprise, as well as not a little to her relief, Honor was informed by the parlour-maid--who struck her, even at a cursory glance, to be rather pert and forward--that neither Colonel Norcott nor his wife were at home. Mrs. Norcott was “gone for a walk,” Miss Lydia said (she was only Polly to the gentleman lodger). Mrs. Beacham had not been expected by such an early train, and she (Lydia) _knowed_--at least, so she had heard the Colonel say--that _he_ was obliged to go out on business.