Halfway down the stairs came a woman whom he had never seen before. A black velvet dress, made high in the throat, with a wide collar of heavy lace upon her shoulders, hung clingingly about the outlines of her tall and perfect figure; her hands, with some lace ruffles falling about her wrists, were simply crossed before her. The light of a distant hanging-lamp shone down upon her, just catching one diamond star that glittered among the thick coils of her hair--she wore no other ornament. She came down the stairs slowly, almost lingeringly, with a certain grace in her movements, and without a shadow of embarrassment or self-consciousness. Maurice drew aside to let her pass him--looking at her--for how could he choose but look? But when she reached the bottom of the steps, she turned her face towards him. "You are Maurice--are you not?" she said, and put forth both her hands towards him. An utter bewilderment as to who she was made him speechless; his mind had been full of Helen and his own troubles; everything else had gone out of his head. She coloured a little, still holding out her hands to him. "I am Vera," she said, simply, and there was a little deprecating appeal in the words as though she would have added, "Be my friend." He took the hands--soft slender hands that trembled a very little in his grasp--within his own, and some nameless charm in their gentle touch brought a sudden flush into his face, but no appropriate words concerning his pleasure at meeting her, or his gratification at their future relations, fell from Maurice Kynaston's lips. He only held her thus by her hands, and looked at her--looked at her as if he could never look at her enough--from her head to her feet, and from her feet up again to her head, till a sudden wave of colour flooded her face at the earnestness of his scrutiny. "Vera--_Vera Nevill_!" was all he said; and then below his breath, as though his absolute amazement were utterly irrepressible: "_By Jove!_" And Vera laughed softly at the thoroughly British character of the exclamation. "How like an Englishman!" she said. "An Italian would have paid me fifty pretty compliments in half the time you have taken just to stare at me!" "What a charming _tableau vivant_!" exclaims a voice above them as Mrs. Romer comes down the staircase. "You really look like a scene in a play! Pray don't let me disturb you." "I am making friends with my sister-in-law that is to be, Mrs. Romer," says Maurice, who has dropped Vera's hands with a guilty suddenness, and now endeavours to look completely at his ease--an effort in which he signally fails. "Were you? Dear me! I thought you and Miss Nevill were practising the pose of the 'Huguenots'!"