asure as it came, troubling myself
little either about other people's affairs or my own.

And this was the result of my plan. There seemed a certain unreality
about it all. I felt like the puppet of circumstances, or one who moved
through strange mazes, half conscious that he merely dreams.

By two o'clock everything was arranged for my departure on Saturday, and
I was at Waterloo, taking my ticket for Haslemere, which was the station
nearest to Sir Walter Tressidy's country place.

CHAPTER XIX

"Not at Home"

I had a long, dreary drive after leaving the train, though in other
circumstances I might have been charmed with the loveliness of one of
England's fairest counties. As it was I merely chafed at the endless
hill, up which the horse slowly plodded, half inclined to think that
after all I should have done better to trust to my own feet or come on a
bicycle from town.

The curtain of twilight was falling by the time my fly entered the long
avenue that led to the house. Here and there lights shone out from the
windows, and as the vehicle drew up before the door I caught a glimpse
of something which set my heart throbbing.

It was only a ruddy gleam of firelight on a golden head, which shone for
an instant in the warm light like burnished copper; only a rosy glow on
a girl's white dress, a shimmer seen between the parted folds of dark,
rich window drapings.

For a second, no more, the vision was granted me. A tall, slender form
rose from its kneeling position before the fire, and in so moving passed
beyond my line of sight. But my pulses leaped, and I rejoiced in the
good fortune which had brought me at an hour when Karine was not absent.

I stepped quickly from the cab and would have given much for the right
of a greater intimacy--a right to go to the window and knock, begging
the girl I loved to let me in, to grant me the heaven of ten minutes
alone with her, before the necessities of convention called upon me to
ask for Lady Tressidy.

I imagined what it would be to have this right; I pictured myself
tapping at the panes of the long French window, I saw the dainty girlish
form coming toward me, the start of surprise, the flush which I might
read as I would, the raising of the latch, and the two warm little hands
held out to me in welcome.

But it was all a dream, vanishing as quickly as the rainbow colours in a
bubble, and leaving only the darkness of the dull winter twilight
behind. Such privi