When Mrs. Blagdon stepped out on the London platform, it was a woebegone young woman, with a white and frightened face, that encountered the glad eyes of her awaiting lover,--who instantly recognised that his beloved had recently passed through some great emotional storm, and that her courage had been sorely shaken by this, the most daring venture of her existence. Here was a different Letty to the one who had danced with him so gaily at the Brakesby Ball, and skimmed over the ice on Batley Mere; _she_ was a girl radiant with youth and expectant happiness, looking out on the future with brave and shining eyes. This Letty, with her pathetic expression and tremulous lips, recalled some poor wild bird with a broken wing, and he realised that he must treat her with extraordinary tact and tenderness. They went together in search of her luggage, which turned out to be of surprisingly modest dimensions, and in keeping with its owner’s costume. Wearing a simple white linen and a plain shady hat, Letty might be the daughter of a curate, or a clerk, instead of the wife of a fabulously wealthy man; but her companion understood; she wished to leave Blagdon as she had gone to him--empty handed. With a lover’s memory, he recognised her little turquoise brooch, and a certain thin, old-fashioned locket. In a few minutes the pair were in a hansom threading their way to the Cosmopolitan. Letty, sitting very far back in her corner, with a rigid profile and tightly clasped hands. It was more than two years since she had been in London, and the noise, the traffic, the varied sights, and the jostling crowds, struck her in forcible contrast to the silence and emptiness of the country. After a long and sensitive silence, Lumley said: “Letty, you look terribly pale and tired. I am afraid you feel knocked up?” “No, no, I’m not tired,” she answered; “but so thirsty, I can scarcely speak.” “We will have tea the moment we get to the hotel. It’s just half-past five now. I’ve taken rooms there.” “Rooms,” she repeated, looking at him with a vacant gaze. “Yes; in my name, and what will one day be yours,” and he lifted one of her hands and kissed it. “Rooms for Captain and Mrs. Lumley.” The future Mrs. Lumley dragged away her hand, and made no reply; her face flamed, no one could call her pale now.