"There is no cause for alarm," he said. "Pray do not wait here. I will explain everything in a few minutes, if I may." "Now please, Miss Lorimer, go back upstairs; there's nothing to be frightened at," chimed in Mrs. Maryon, with some asperity. A few minutes afterwards Frank Jermyn knocked at the door of the Lorimers' sitting-room, and on being admitted, found himself well within the fire of four questioning pairs of feminine eyes. "Pray sit down, sir," said Fan, who had been prepared for his arrival. "How are we ever to thank you?" "There is nothing to thank me for, as your sisters can tell you," he said, bluntly. He looked a modest, pleasant little person enough as he sat there in his light overcoat and dress clothes, all the fierceness gone out of him. "I have merely come to tell you that nothing terrible has happened. It seems that the poor Frenchwoman below has been in money difficulties, and has been trying to put an end to herself. The Maryons discovered this in time, and it has been as much as they could do to prevent her from carrying out her plan. Hence these tears," he added, with a smile. When once you had seen Frank Jermyn smile, you believed in him from that moment. The girls were full of horror and pity at the tale. "We have had a great shock," said Fan, wiping her eyes, with dignity. "Such a terrible noise. But you heard it for yourself." A pause; the young fellow looked round rather wistfully, as though doubtful of what footing he stood on among them. "We must not keep you," went on Fan, whose tongue was loosened by excitement; "no doubt (glancing at his clothes) you are going out to dinner." She spoke in the manner of a fallen queen who alludes to the ceremony of coronation. Frank rose. "By the by," he said, looking down, "I have often wished--I have never ventured"--then looking up and smiling brightly, "I have often wondered if you included photographing at artists' studios in your work." Lucy assured him that they did, and the young man asked permission to call on them the next day at the studio. Then he added-- "My name is Jermyn, and I live at Number 19, opposite." "I think," said Lucy, in the candid, friendly fashion which always set people at their ease, "that we have an acquaintance in common, Miss Devonshire." Jermyn acknowledged that such was the case; a few remarks on the subject were exchanged, then Frank went off to his dinner-party, having first shaken hands with each of the girls in all cordiality and frankness. Mrs. Maryon came up in the course of the evening, to express her regret that the ladies had been frightened and disturbed; setting aside with cynical good-humour their anxious expressions of pity and sympathy for the heroine of the affair. "It isn't for such as you to trouble yourselves about such as her," she said, "although I'm sorry enough for Steffany myself--and never a penny of last quarter's rent paid!"