The interruption came from a clerk; it served to recal his master to what he so rarely forgot, the business of every-day life. Mr. Barty was an eminent contractor, and Robert Hunter's hopes went up to fever-heat as he welcomed him. One great work entrusted to him from this great man, and the future might be all plain sailing. He was not wholly disappointed. Mr. Barty had come to offer him business; or rather, to pave the way for it; for the offer was not positively entered on then, only the proposed work--a new line of rail--discussed. There was one drawback--it was a line abroad--and Robert Hunter did not much like this. Mary Anne Thornycroft had not many friends in London; nearly all her holidays during the half-year had been passed at Mrs. Macpherson's. Susan Hunter invariably accompanied her; and what more natural than that Robert should (invited, or uninvited, as it might happen) drop in to meet his sister? There had lain the whole thing--the intercourse afforded by these rather frequent meetings--and nothing more need be said; they had fallen in love with one another. Yes. The singular attraction each had seemed to possess for the other the first time they met, but increased with every subsequent interview. It had not needed many. Mary Anne Thornycroft, who had scarcely ever so much as read of the name of love, had lost her heart to this young man, the widower Robert Hunter, entirely and hopelessly. That he was--at any rate at present--no suitable match for her, she never so much as glanced twice at: the Thornycrofts were not wont to regard expediency when it interfered with inclination. Not a word had been spoken; not a hint given; but there is a language of the heart, and they had become versed in it. Clever Mrs. Macpherson, so keen-sighted generally in the affairs of men and women, never so much as gave a thought to what was passing under her very eyes; Miss Hunter, who had discernment too, was totally blind here. As to the professor, with his spectacled eyes up aloft in the sky or buried in the earth, it would have been far too much to suspect him of seeing it. A very delightful state of things for the lovers. When Robert Hunter reached Mrs. Macpherson's that dark December evening, he saw nobody in the drawing-room. He had been invited to dinner; five o'clock sharp, Mrs. Macpherson told him; for the professor had an engagement at six which would keep him out, and she did not intend that he should depart dinnerless. This was Miss Thornycroft's farewell visit; in two days she was going home for Christmas, not again to return to school. She had invited Susan Hunter (who would remain at school until March), to come down during the holidays and spend a week at the Red Court Farm; and her brother was to accompany her.