What the uppermost subject in her thoughts was as she went sauntering along, careless whether she took this path or the other, she was never afterwards able to remember. All she knew was that she was softly crooning a lately-learnt ballad which had taken her fancy, and that she felt quietly and sunnily happy, when all at once, without an instant’s warning, and unknown to herself; she touched the turning-point of her destiny. Ethel, who had stopped in her walk, in order to inhale the fragrance of some late-blooming roses, hearing the sound of approaching footsteps on the gravel, turned her head to see who was coming, and a moment later, round a clump of evergreens, appeared the unforgotten face and figure of Everard Lisle, who was on his way to his daily duties at the Chase. The two were within a dozen yards of each other, and the moment Lisle’s eyes fell on Ethel, he came to an abrupt halt, paralysed as it were by sheer amazement. Ethel’s heart seemed to stop beating for an instant or two, and then went on with a bound, while a lovely flush suffused her face and throat, and seemed to tingle down to her very fingertips. Everard, on the contrary, had turned almost as pale as a corpse. Ordinarily one of the most self-possessed of men, he had now to draw three or four laboured breaths before a word would come. After all, it was Ethel who first broke the silence. She advanced a little way and held out her hand with a smile which to Everard seemed little less than heavenly. “And is it really you, Mr. Lisle?” she said. “I could scarcely believe at first that my eyes were not playing me false. Withington Chase was the place, was it not, to which you told me you had come when—when I saw you last? But I only heard the name once, and that must be my excuse for having forgotten it. In any case, I am very glad to meet you again. It is only three weeks since I left dear St. Oswyth’s, and yet when I look back it seems like an age.” By this time Lisle had hold of her hand, which he seemed in no hurry to release. “Yes, this is my home, Miss Ethel, and has been ever since I left my father’s roof. Not the Chase itself, mind you,” he smilingly added, “but a much humbler domicile just beyond the park. Sir Gilbert and my father were at the same college somewhere about half a century ago, so when the former found himself in want of an assistant—a sort of half secretary and half bailiff—he called to mind the fact that the man whose good fortune it had been in years gone by to save his life, and whom he had never quite lost sight of since, had a son, and offered him the post. And now that I have told you so much about myself, allow me to ask, in the name of all that’s wonderful, how I happen to find you here?”