her to the
house. Presently there appeared a light at an upper window, and a
shadow kept moving across the blind. When the light was extinguished
Hilliard went to bed, but that night he slept little.

The next morning passed in restless debate with himself. He did not
cross the way to call upon Eve: the thought of speaking with her on the
doorstep of a lodging-house proved intolerable. All day long he kept
his post of observation. Other persons he saw leave and enter the
house, but Miss Madeley did not come forth. That he could have missed
her seemed impossible, for even while eating his meals he remained by
the window. Perchance she had left home very early in the morning, but
it was unlikely.

Through the afternoon it rained: the gloomy sky intensified his fatigue
and despondence. About six o'clock, exhausted in mind and body, he had
allowed his attention to stray, when the sudden clang of a street organ
startled him. His eyes turned in the wonted direction--and instantly he
sprang up. To clutch his hat, to rush from the room and from the house,
occupied but a moment. There, walking away on the other side, was Eve.
Her fawn-coloured mantle, her hat with the yellow flowers, were the
same as yesterday. The rain had ceased; in the western sky appeared
promise of a fair evening.

Hilliard pursued her in a parallel line. At the top of the street she
crossed towards him; he let her pass by and followed closely. She
entered the booking-office of Gower Street station; he drew as near as
possible and heard her ask for a ticket--

"Healtheries; third return."

The slang term for the Health Exhibition at Kensington was familiar to
him from the English papers he had seen in Paris. As soon as Eve had
passed on he obtained a like ticket and hastened down the steps in
pursuit. A minute or two and he was sitting face to face with her in
the railway carriage.

He could now observe her at his leisure and compare her features with
those represented in the photograph. Mrs. Brewer had said truly that
the portrait did not do her justice; he saw the resemblance, yet what a
difference between the face he had brooded over at Dudley and that
which lived before him! A difference not to be accounted for by mere
lapse of time. She could not, he thought, have changed greatly in the
last two or three years, for her age at the time of sitting for the
photograph must have been at least one-and-twenty. She did not look
older than he had expect