st time we were out together, an
accident made us late--at the tobogganing party, you know."

They had entered the station, which appeared perfectly deserted. The last
official had gone up with Lascelles' train. A fire, however, was still
burning, and the coal-box only half empty.

Du Meresq threw the coals on the waning embers, which responded with a
cheerful fizz to the needed aliment, and then began unlacing Cecil's wet
boots as she sat before the fire.

These two had often been alone together without the slightest
embarrassment, but now, perhaps from the reaction, and being a little
unstrung, she felt a most distressing sensation of it, besides which the
anti-climax of his occupation after her overwrought anticipations of
their mutual fate, gave her an hysterical inclination to a peal of
laughter.

He did not speak, and silence was too oppressive to be endured, so she
cast about desperately for a topic of conversation. The _entourage_ was
not particularly suggestive,--four white-washed walls and the chair she
was sitting on comprised the furniture. Clearly she could not take in
ideas with her eyes, which, indeed, were fixed with a magnetic
persistence on the mathematically straight parting of Bertie's back hair,
which would scarcely furnish subject for remark.

"There go a ruined pair of Balmorals," said he, placing them in the
fender. "Your stockings are wet through, too; why don't you take them
off?"

"I prefer them wet," said Cecil, rather scandalized.

"Shall I go and walk about outside while you dry them?" asked he, with a
smile.

"Yes, do. Walk away altogether if you like."

"But you might drown yourself going home alone, and haunt my remaining
days.

'They made her a grave too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true,
And all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe,'"--

quoted Bertie, jestingly.

Cecil disliked his manner, and felt irritated; but there she was,
imprisoned, bootless, in her chair, while those appendages smoked damply
in the fender.

"Dear me," she said, impatiently, "will that wind never drop! When shall
we be able to start, I wonder?"

"Don't you think we are more comfortable here?" said he, lazily.
"Remember what a row there'll be when we get home."

"Yes, you always get me into scrapes. Why did you bother me into this
idiotic expedition?"

"Didn't you ask me to take you?" provokingly. "I am sure I understood you
wished to come."