Now, on that afternoon of the first snow, Mr. Tuke was busying himself in the room he had made his private and personal study, and Darda was helping him to the arrangement of his none too numerous volumes, when her brother came in to crave a word with his master. “Sir,” said he, “I believe you would like to know that Sir David and Miss Royston are returned to ‘Chatters.’” Tuke looked up in some surprise. “Already?” he said. “Are you sure?” “Indeed, yes, sir. I had it from Betty Pollack.” “Betty?” “She drove over to-day, sir, with her father, for orders, hearing that you had come back; and she stated that young Gamble had happened upon Sir David and party posting over the high downs at six o’clock yesterday evening.” “Oh, very well, Dennis.” The man withdrew, and the master resumed his labours preoccupied. Presently he slapped a book down upon the table, and--“You must go on by yourself, Darda,” said he, and left the room. For some minutes after his exit the girl remained motionless where she stood; her ear turned to the last echo of his retreating footstep, her face like a deep-cut cameo, stained with blue shadows, the glory of her hair flaming against a background of snow. From her whiteness and her quiet she might have been the very ghost of some burning thought awake for the first time to the winter of its desolation. Presently she uttered a little heart-rending sigh, and went on forlornly with her occupation. Her master, in the meanwhile, was gone about _his_ business; and that was no less than a visit to the returned travellers. His resolve to undertake this was not the fruit of any desperate hope. He had no natural inclination to hold himself cheaply in questions of moral treatment, and he was sensitive, in a manly way, to the insolences of feminine rebuke. But he had schooled himself into an attitude towards Miss Royston which only some real act of violence to his feelings should convince him was entirely unjustified, and he would not consent to yield his office at that lady’s little court unless he were to suffer an outspoken decree of banishment. He had made up his mind, in fact, like a little naughty but repentant boy, to be good, and good he would be if properly encouraged. Now he was to see if Angela would resume her former self with her accustomed life, and, desiring test of this, he would plunge once more into the fire. And here, I regret to say, all his eremitic visions dissolved into thin air, and he was decided that for him the “running brooks” must suffice for library. He walked through the deep snow to “Chatters,” and was removing his coat in the hall thereof, after being admitted, when a lofty and languid figure came upon him, and paused in some fatigued surprise on its way to a room-door. He uttered an exclamation, and, advancing upon this person, accosted him decidedly cavalierly. “You here, Dunlone!” he said. “This is entirely unexpected.”