Later Steele walked back to the quaint little hotel where he was staying, confused by the hurried sweetness of her farewell as she withdrew from her position at the window with a caution that suggested unseen interruption. He had stepped forward with noiseless haste to secure a rose which fell from her window, and carrying it with him, made his way silently out of the garden. He was never certain whether the falling of the rose had been accidental, or whether Prudence had dropped it for him as a token and a reminder; but because her hand had gathered it, he lifted it in the moonlight and touched its cool fragrance reverently with his lips. The act made him consciously her lover. The rose became a symbol--a bond between him and her. Just so long as he kept it he knew that her influence would dominate his life, and his memory of her retain its warm and vital quality, so that she would remain a beautiful inspiration amid the sordid worries of uncongenial things. CHAPTER EIGHT. "I heard you," Miss Matilda said in tones of immense reserve to her youngest sister on the following morning when they met on the landing at the top of the stairs, "talking from your window last night." Prudence blushed brightly. "Then it was you who came to my door?" "Yes." Miss Matilda kept her maidenly gaze lowered to the carpet. Her expression was guilty, so that one might have supposed that she, and not the defiant young woman whom she accosted in this unexpected way, had engaged in clandestine whisperings overnight. "I was afraid Mary might wake. You were a little imprudent, I think." Prudence laughed. The gently spoken reproof sounded like a play on her name. "You are a dear," she said, and felt more kindly towards this sister whom she so little understood. Had Miss Matilda proved less pliant to Miss Graynor's moulding she might have developed into an ordinary human being; but she had gone down under Miss Agatha's training, had imbibed the family traditions until she became saturated with the Graynor ideals and lost her own individuality. In her heart she sympathised with her sister's indiscretions; but her mind condemned this conduct as unseemly and unbecoming in a girl of refinement. She went downstairs in advance of Prudence, and throughout the reading of the morning prayers her pink distressed face witnessed to its owner's shame in being a partner to this flagrant deception. She was shielding her sister against her conscience: no accessory to a criminal offence could have felt more wickedly implicated. And Prudence did not care. She was so utterly reckless that she had not bargained even with Miss Matilda for her silence. It had not occurred to Prudence that anyone could be mean enough to inform against her.