Mr. Stone's frail form, bent somewhat to one side by the increased
gravamen of the osier bag, was now seen moving homewards. He arrived
perhaps ten minutes before the three o'clock alarum, and soon passing
through preliminary chaos, the articulate, thin fluting of his voice
streamed forth again, broken by the squeaking and spluttering of his
quill.

But towards four o'clock signs of cerebral excitement became visible;
his lips would cease to utter sounds, his pen to squeak. His face, with
a flushed forehead, would appear at the open window. As soon as the
little model came in sight--her eyes fixed, not on his window, but on
Hilary's--he turned his back, evidently waiting for her to enter by the
door. His first words were uttered in a tranquil voice: "I have several
pages. I have placed your chair. Are you ready? Follow!"

Except for that strange tranquillity of voice and the disappearance of
the flush on his brow, there was no sign of the rejuvenescence that she
brought, of such refreshment as steals on the traveller who sits down
beneath a lime-tree toward the end of along day's journey; no sign of
the mysterious comfort distilled into his veins by the sight of her
moody young face, her young, soft limbs. So from some stimulant men very
near their end will draw energy, watching, as it were, a shape beckoning
them forward, till suddenly it disappears in darkness.

In the quarter of an hour sacred to their tea and conversation he never
noticed that she was always listening for sounds beyond; it was enough
that in her presence he felt singleness of purpose strong within him.

When she had gone, moving languidly, moodily away, her eyes darting