"Oh, you won't find him! They go on to Basingstoke at once. But on his return journey he will come to see if she is well enough to be moved. You ought to go and look at her, Denzil, she is most remarkable. She is not grown up yet, but she is going to be a lovely woman--such hair--a dark, rich chestnut, not a bit red, but like Romney's 'Lady Hamilton.' And dark blue eyes--what a novelist might call violet, I should think--and very remarkable, expressive features. When she is conscious and out of pain, she ought to be worth looking at." "Were they alone on the barge?" asked Denzil. "Oh, no, the master was there too. He said the boy had worked for him three years, and was a very good boy. Poor old man, he seemed quite upset; he said he was as fond of the girl as if she had been his own." "Well, that doesn't seem to favor your escape theory." "No, it doesn't," said she, thoughtfully; "but there is something odd about them, I feel sure." The subject was of such interest that they talked of it all dinner-time. The Cottage Hospital was as much his hobby as it was hers, and they were full of simple pleasure and self-congratulation that its walls should have been waiting, in all their new and dainty cleanliness, to shelter the pretty stranger girl in her extremity. Miss Rawson promised her nephew that he should visit her as soon as the doctor would permit--and then she resolutely changed the subject to that of inviting a few people to stay. Denzil was willing to consent. He usually went abroad for a month in March and April, because he had an idea that persons of means and culture were in the habit of visiting Italy and the South of Europe at that time. But his chief friend, a parson of independent means, upon whose art opinion he depended in great measure, would not be able to accompany him that spring. So the invitations were to go out, and Denzil dwelt with pleasure upon the prospect of once more meeting Myrtle, daughter of Colonel Bentley, a nice-looking girl who did district visiting and read Tennyson, a blend which seemed to Denzil eminently suited to his notions of what might fitly become the future mistress of Normansgrave.