When the congregation began to disperse, a number of persons, chiefly ladies, waited for him near the pulpit, and, as he came down, met him with greetings and compliments. Nora watched him from her place, listening, smiling, and passing his handkerchief over his forehead. At last they released him, and he came up to her. She remembered for years afterward the strange half-smile on his face. There was something in it like a pair of eyes peeping over a wall. It seemed to express so fine an acquiescence in what she had done, that, for the moment, she had a startled sense of having committed herself to something. He gave her his hand, without manifesting any surprise. “How did you get here?” “In a carriage. I saw it in the paper at the last moment.” “Does Roger know you came?” “No; he had gone to Mrs. Keith’s.” “So you started off alone, at a moment’s notice?” She nodded, blushing. He was still holding her hand; he pressed it and dropped it. “O Hubert,” cried Nora, suddenly, “now I know you!” Two ladies were lingering near, apparently mother and daughter. “I must be civil to them,” he said: “they have come from New York to hear me.” He quickly rejoined them and conducted them toward their carriage. The younger one was extremely pretty, and looked a little like a Jewess. Nora observed that she wore a great diamond in each ear; she eyed our heroine rather severely as they passed. In a few minutes Hubert came back, and, before she knew it, she had taken his arm and he was beside her in her own carriage. They drove to the hotel in silence; he went up stairs with her. Roger had not returned. “Mrs. Keith is very agreeable,” said Hubert. “But Roger knew that long ago. I suppose you have heard,” he added: “but perhaps you have not heard.” “I have not heard,” said Nora, “but I have suspected—” “What?” “No; it is for you to say.” “Why, that Mrs. Keith might have been Mrs. Lawrence.” “Ah, I was right,—I was right,” murmured Nora, with a little air of triumph. “She may be still. I wish she would!” Nora was removing her bonnet before the mirror over the chimney-piece; as she spoke, she caught Hubert’s eye in the glass. He dropped it and took up his hat. “Won’t you wait?” she asked. He said he thought he had better go, but he lingered without sitting down. Nora walked about the room, she hardly knew why, smoothing the table-covers and rearranging the chairs. “Did you cry about your departure, the other night, as you promised?” Hubert asked. “I confess that I was so tired with our adventures that I went straight to sleep.”