Leonard received the letter at breakfast-time. He did not give it
any special attention, as he had other letters at the same time, some
of which were, if less pleasant, of more immediate importance. He
had of late been bombarded with dunning letters from tradesmen; for
during his University life, and ever since, he had run into debt.
The moderate allowance his father made him he had treated as cash for
incidental expenses, but everything else had been on credit. Indeed
he was beginning to get seriously alarmed about the future, for his
father, who had paid his debts once, and at a time when they were by
comparison inconsiderable, had said that he would not under any
circumstances pay others. He was not sorry, therefore, for an
opportunity of getting away for a few hours from home; from himself--
from anxieties, possibilities. The morning was a sweltering one, and
he grumbled to himself as he set out on his journey through the
woods.


Stephen rose fresh and in good spirits, despite her sleepless night.
When youth and strength are to the fore, a night's sleep is not of
much account, for the system once braced up is not allowed to
slacken. It was a notable sign of her strong nature that she was not
even impatient, but waited with calm fixity the hour at which she had
asked Leonard Everard to meet her. It is true that as the time grew
closer her nerve was less marked. And just before it she was a girl-
-and nothing more; with all girl's diffidence, a girl's self-
distrust, a girl's abnegation, a girl's plasticity.

In the more purely personal aspect of her enterprise Stephen's effort
was more conscious. It is hardly possible for a pretty woman to seek