s a slow place, and yet, when I think of that
haughty--no, though, she's not haughty--that imperturbable Beatrice
Meadowsweet, it becomes positively interesting.

"Why has the girl these airs? And her father kept a shop, too! I found
that fact out from Matty Bell to-day. What a spiteful, teasing little
gnat that same Matty is, trying to sting her best friend. What a little
mock ridiculous air she put on when she tried to explain to me the
social status of a coal merchant (I presume Bell is a coal merchant)
_versus_ a draper."

As Bertram strolled along, avoiding the High Street, and choosing the
coast line for his walk, he lazily smoked a pipe, and thought, in that
idle indifferent way with which men of his stamp always do exercise
their mental faculties, about his future. His past, his present, his
possible future rose up before the young fellow. He was harassed by
duns, he was, according to his own way of thinking, reduced to an almost
degrading state of poverty. His mother had put her hand to a bill for a
considerable amount to save him. He was morally certain that she would
have to meet that bill, and when she met it that she would be half
ruined. Nevertheless, he felt gay, and light at heart, for men of his
class are seldom troubled with remorse.

Presently he reached the lodge gates. His mother's fad about having them
locked was always religiously kept, and he grumbled now as he sought for
a latch-key in his waistcoat-pocket.

He opened the side gate and let himself in; the gate had a spring, and
was so constructed that it could shut and lock itself by the same act.
Bertram was preparing to walk quickly up the avenue when he was startled
by a sudden morement; a tall slim apparition in gray came slowly out of
the darkness, caused by the shadow of the lodge, to meet him.

"Good God!" he said; and he stepped back, and his heart thumped hard
against his breast.

"It's me, Loftus--I'm back again--I'm with you again," said a voice
which thrilled him.

The girl in gray flung her arms around his neck, and laid her head of
red gold on his breast.

"Good God! Nina! Josephine! Where have you come from? I was thinking of
you only tonight. It's a year since we met. Where have you sprung from?
Out of the sky, or the earth? Look at me, witch, look in my face!"

He put his hand under her chin, raised her very fair oval face; (the
moonlight fell full on it--he could see it well); he looked long and
hungrily into her eye