Mr. Southwode thereupon took his departure. If he had known what eyes and ears were strained to get knowledge of him at that moment, I think he would have stood his ground and taken some very decided measures. But he could not see from the lighted hall below up into the darkness of the third story, even' if it could have occurred to him to try. There stood however a white figure, leaning over the balusters, and very well aware whose steps were going through the hall and out at the front door. Poor Rotha had obeyed orders and undressed and gone to bed, though she insisted her throat was only a very little irritated; and neither the one fact nor the other had prevented her from jumping tip to listen when the door bell rang, and again when steps she knew came out from the parlour. Again he had been here, and again she had missed him. Of course he could do nothing when told that she was in bed with a cold. Rotha went back into her room and stood trembling, not with a chill, though the night was cold enough, but with a fever of rage and desperation. She opened the window and poured out the lemonade which she had not touched; she shut the window and wrung her hands. She seemed to be in a net, in a cage, in a prison; and the walls of her prison were so invisible that she could not get at them to burst them. She would write to Mr. Digby, only she did not know his address. Would he not write to her, perhaps? Rotha Was in a kind of fury of impatience and indignation; this thought served to give her a little stay to hold by. And a letter did come for her the very next evening; and Rotha's eyes never saw it, nor did her ears hear of it. Neither did her new dresses come to light; and evening after evening her condition was not changed. She was prisoner up stairs with her books and studies, which did not occupy her; and hour after hour Rotha stood in the hall and listened, or sat watching. She could not hear Mr. Digby's voice again. She wondered what had power to detain him. With craving anxiety and the strain of hope and fear, Rotha's cheek began to grow pale. It was getting at last beyond endurance. She went through her school duties mechanically, thinking of something else, yet doing all that was required of her; for, as I said, it was ground that she had gone over already. She queried with herself whether Mr. Southwode might not come even to the school to seek her; it seemed so impossible that she should be utterly kept from the sight of him. All this while Rotha never spoke his name before her aunt or cousin; never asked a question about him or his visits. By what subtle instinct it is hard to tell, she knew the atmosphere of the house was not favourable to the transmission of those particular sounds.