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She left him before Cosway could explain that he and Mr. Restall had thus far never seen each other.

He wandered away toward the extremity of the grounds, troubled by vague suspicions; hurt at Adela’s cold reception of him. Entering a shrubbery, which seemed intended to screen the grounds, at this point, from a lane outside, he suddenly discovered a pretty little summer-house among the trees. A stout gentleman, of mature years, was seated alone in this retreat. He looked up with a frown. Cosway apologized for disturbing him, and entered into conversation as an act of politeness.

“A brilliant assembly to-day, sir.”

The stout gentleman replied by an inarticulate sound–something between a grunt and a cough.

“And a splendid house and grounds,” Cosway continued.

The stout gentleman repeated the inarticulate sound.

Cosway began to feel amused. Was this curious old man deaf and dumb?

“Excuse my entering into conversation,” he persisted. “I feel like a stranger here. There are so many people whom I don’t know.”

The stout gentleman suddenly burst into speech. Cosway had touched a sympathetic fiber at last.

“There are a good many people here whom I don’t know,” he said, gruffly. “You are one of them. What’s your name?”

“My name is Cosway, sir. What’s yours?”

The stout gentleman rose with fury in his looks. He burst out with an oath; and added the in tolerable question, already three times repeated by others: “How did you get here?” The tone was even more offensive than the oath. “Your age protects you, sir,” said Cosway, with the loftiest composure. “I’m sorry I gave my name to so rude a person.”

“Rude?” shouted the old gentleman. “You want my name in return, I suppose? You young puppy, you shall have it! My name is Restall.”

He turned his back and walked off. Cosway took the only course now open to him. He returned to his lodgings.

The next day no letter reached him from Adela. He went to the postoffice. No letter was there. The day wore on to evening–and, with the evening, there appeared a woman who was a stranger to him. She looked like a servant; and she was the bearer of a mysterious message.

“Please be at the garden-door that opens on the lane, at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. Knock three times at the door–and then say ‘Adela.’ Some one who wishes you well will be alone in the shrubbery, and will let you in. No, sir! I am not to take anything; and I am not to say a word more.” She spoke–and vanished.

Cosway was punctual to his appointment. He knocked three times; he pronounced Miss Restall’s Christian name. Nothing happened. He waited a while, and tried again. This time Adela’s voice answered strangely from the shrubbery in tones of surprise: “Edwin, is it really you?”

“Did you expect any one else?” Cosway asked. “My darling, your message said ten o’clock–and here I am.”

The door was suddenly unlocked.

“I sent no message,” said Adela, as they confronted each other on the threshold.

In the silence of utter bewilderment they went together into the summer-house. At Adela’s request, Cosway repeated the message that he had received, and described the woman who had delivered it. The description applied to no person known to Miss Restall. “Mrs. Margery never sent you the invitation; and I repeat, I never sent you the message. This meeting has been arranged by some one who knows that I always walk in the shrubbery after breakfast. There is some underhand work going on–“

Still mentally in search of the enemy who had betrayed them, she checked herself, and considered a little. “Is it possible–?” she began, and paused again. Her eyes filled with tears. “My mind is so completely upset,” she said, “that I can’t think clearly of anything. Oh, Edwin, we have had a happy dream, and it has come to an end. My father knows more than we think for. Some friends of ours are going abroad tomorrow–and I am to go with them. Nothing I can say has the least effect upon my father. He means to part us forever–and this is his cruel way of doing it!”