t starting an
oratorio instead of my opera. Wasn't it strange that when your letter
came from Brenthill we should remember that an old friend of my
mother's lived there? Judith and she have been writing to each other
ever since. Clifton is evidently undergoing tortures with the man he
has got now, so I should not wonder if we are at Brenthill in a few
days. It will be better for my chance of pupils too. I shall look you
up without fail, and expect you to know everything about lodgings. How
about Bellevue street? Are you far from St. Sylvester's?"

Thorne read the letter carefully, and drew from it two conclusions and
a perplexity. He concluded that Bertie Lisle's elastic spirits had
quickly recovered the shock of his father's failure and flight,
and that he had not the faintest idea that any property of
his--Percival's--had gone down in the wreck. So much the better.

His perplexity was, What was Miss Lisle going to do? Could the "we"
who were to arrive imply that she meant to accompany her brother? And
what was the something she had heard of for herself? The words haunted
him. Was the ruin so complete that she too must face the world and
earn her own living? A sense of cruel wrong stirred in his inmost
soul.

He made up his mind at last that she was coming to establish Bertie in
his lodgings before she went on her own way. He offered any help in
his power when he answered the letter, but he added a postscript:
"Don't think of Bellevue street: you wouldn't like it." He heard no
more till one day he came back to his early dinner and found a sealed
envelope on his table. It contained a half sheet of paper, on which
Bertie had scrawled in pencil, "Why did you abuse Bellevue street? We
think it will do. And why didn't you say there were rooms in this
very house? We have taken them, so there is an end of your peaceful
solitude. I'm going to practise for ever and ever. If you don't like
it there's no reason why you shouldn't leave: it's a free country,
they say."

Percival looked round his room. She had been there, then?--perhaps had
stood where he was standing. His glance fell on the turquoise-blue
vase and the artificial flowers, and he colored as if he were Lydia's
accomplice. Had she seen those and the _Language of Flowers_?

As if his thought had summoned her, Lydia herself appeared to lay the
cloth for his dinner. She looked quickly round: "Did you see your
note, Mr. Thorne?"

"Thank you, yes," said Percival.