ly by a couple of
candles, was too great to admit of their seeing anything distinctly; but
with a further advance Knight discerned, in front of the black masses
lining the walls, a young man standing, and writing in a pocket-book.

Knight said one word: 'Stephen!'

Stephen Smith, not being in such absolute ignorance of Knight's
whereabouts as Knight had been of Smith's instantly recognized his
friend, and knew by rote the outlines of the fair woman standing behind
him.

Stephen came forward and shook him by the hand, without speaking.

'Why have you not written, my boy?' said Knight, without in any way
signifying Elfride's presence to Stephen. To the essayist, Smith was
still the country lad whom he had patronized and tended; one to whom
the formal presentation of a lady betrothed to himself would have seemed
incongruous and absurd.

'Why haven't you written to me?' said Stephen.

'Ah, yes. Why haven't I? why haven't we? That's always the query
which we cannot clearly answer without an unsatisfactory sense of our
inadequacies. However, I have not forgotten you, Smith. And now we
have met; and we must meet again, and have a longer chat than this can
conveniently be. I must know all you have been doing. That you have
thriven, I know, and you must teach me the way.'

Elfride stood in the background. Stephen had read the position at a
glance, and immediately guessed that she had never mentioned his name
to Knight. His tact in avoiding catastrophes was the chief quality which
made him intellectually respectable, in which quality he far transcended
Knight; and he decided that a tranquil issue out of the encounter,
without any harrowing of the feelings of either Knight or Elfride, was
to be attempted if possible. His old sense of indebtedness to Knight had
never wholly forsaken him; his love for Elfride was generous now.

As far as he dared look at her movements he saw that her bearing towards
him would be dictated by his own towards her; and if he acted as a
stranger she would do likewise as a means of deliverance. Circumstances
favouring this course, it was desirable also to be rather reserved
towards Knight, to shorten the meeting as much as possible.

'I am afraid that my time is almost too short to allow even of such a
pleasure,' he said. 'I leave here to-morrow. And until I start for the
Continent and India, which will be in a fortnight, I shall have hardly a
moment to spare.'

Knight's disappointment and dis