ep; it brought silence with it and a weight to tired eyes; it bade
the woods be still; and to the lonely and darkened peaks of the hills it
unveiled its canopy of trembling stars. But here there was no
night--there was yellow fire, there were black phantoms unceasingly
hurrying hither and thither, and a dull and constant roar more
continuous than that of any sea. Tottenham Court Road after
Strathaivron! But here at least was actuality; the time for sentimental
sorrows, for dumb and hopeless regrets, was over and gone.

And who was the first to greet him on his return to London--who but
Nina?--not in person, truly, but by a very graceful little message. The
moment he went into his sitting-room his eye fell on the tiny nosegay
lying on the table; and when he took the card from the accompanying
envelope, he knew whose handwriting he would find there. "_Welcome
home_--_from Nina!_"--that was all; but it was enough to make him rather
remorseful. Too much had he neglected his old comrade and ally; he had
scarcely ever written to her; she had been but little in his thoughts.
Poor Nina!--It was a shame he should treat so faithful a friend so ill;
he might have remembered her a little more had not his head been stuffed
with foolish fancies. Well, as soon as he had changed his clothes and
swallowed a bit of food he would jump into a hansom and go along to the
New Theatre; he would be too late to judge of Nina's Grace Mainwaring as
a whole, but he would have a little chat with her in the wings.

He was later in getting there than he had expected; indeed, as he made
his way to the side of the stage, he discovered that his _locum tenens_
had just been recalled and was singing for the second time the
well-known serenade, "The Starry Night"--and very well he sang it, too,
confound him! Lionel said to himself. And here was Nina, standing on a
small platform at the top of a short ladder, and waiting until the
passionate appeal of her sweetheart (in the garden without) should be
finished. She did not know of the presence of the new-comer. Lionel
might have pulled her skirts, it is true, to apprise her of his being
there; but that would not have been decorous; besides, he dared not
distract her attention from the business of the stage. As soon as the
last verse of the serenade had been sung, with its recurring refrain--

"Appear, my sweet, and shame the skies,
That have no splendor
That have no splendor like thine eyes"--