"I'm not the only one present, Don," said the lady, laughing, and turned to her companion. If he had given the second figure a thought as he recognized his old friend, it was to suppose her some working-girl who had conducted the stranger to the place. But now he looked, and saw Helena Forrest. "_You_!" he breathed, and stood transfixed. Miss Forrest had always been, though never conspicuously dressed, such a figure of quiet elegance that one who knew her could almost recognize her with her face quite out of sight. Now, without a single accessory of the sort which stands for high-bred fashion, her beauty flashed at Brown like that of one bright star in a sky of midnight gloom. She was not smiling, she was looking straight at him with her wonderful eyes, and in them was a strange and bewildering appeal. For a moment he could not speak--he, who had been so eloquent within her hearing for the hour past. He looked at her, and looked again at Mrs. Brainard, and back at Helena again, and then he stammered, "I can't--quite--believe it is you--either of you!" and laughed at his own confusion, his face flushing darkly under the skin, clear to the roots of the heavy locks on his forehead. "But you see it is," said Helena's low voice. "We are confident of that ourselves, for the journey has seemed a long one, under two smothering veils. And we hadn't the easiest time finding you." Brown recovered himself. "You didn't motor over this time, then?" "The last time we were here," Mrs. Brainard reminded him, "you told us quite frankly that you didn't care to have your friends arrive in limousines, or in velvet and sables. So--we have left both behind." "I see you have. It was wonderfully kind of you, though the disguise is by no means a perfect one. I wonder if you can possibly think, either of you, that you looked like the rest of my audience!" "Did you know us when we came in?" questioned Mrs. Brainard, with a merry glance. "I think you did not, Mr. Donald Brown!" "How long have you been here?" "We must have come in near the beginning of your talk. You didn't even see us then, did you?" "I saw two figures which looked strange to me--but--the lights--" "Oh, yes," agreed the lady, gayly, "the lights were poor. And you saw two working-women who were merely strangers to you, so you didn't look again." "I'm glad I didn't recognize you." "Why? We rather hoped you would--didn't we, dear?" She looked at her companion, who nodded, smiling. "We both hoped and feared, I think," Helena said. "I couldn't have gone stumbling on," Brown explained. "I should have had to dismiss the meeting, telling them I had a rush of blood to the head--or to the heart!"