You'd better come on at once with me. I know an hotel that isn't bad, and you can have first choice—Beaumont's old rooms; but you must come at once.'

Kate was glad to see that Mr. Bill Williams, the agent in advance, did not remember her. She, however, recognized him at once as the man who had sent Dick to her house.

'Cattle-show week! All the rooms in the town let!' cried Leslie, who had overheard part of Mr. Williams's whisperings. 'Oh dear! I do hope that my rooms aren't let. I hate going to an hotel. Let me out; I must see about them at once. Here, Frank, take hold of this bag.'

'There's no use being in such a hurry; if the rooms are let they are let.
What's the name of the hotel you were speaking of, Williams?'

'I forget the name, but if you don't find lodgings, I'll leave you the address at the theatre,' said the agent in advance, winking at Dick.

'You're too damned clever, Williams; you'll be making somebody's fortune one of these days.'

Kate had some difficulty in keeping close to Dick, for he was surrounded the moment he stepped out on the platform. The baggage-man had a quantity of questions to ask him, and Hayes was desirous of re-explaining how the ticket-collector had happened to misunderstand him. Pulling his long whiskers, the acting manager walked about murmuring, 'Stupid fool! stupid darned fool!' And there were some twenty young women who pleaded in turn, their little hands laid on the arm of the popular fat man.

'Yes, dear; that's it,' he answered. 'I'll see to it to-morrow. I'll try not to put you in Miss Crawford's dressing-room, since you don't agree.'

'And, Mr. Lennox, you will see that I'm not shoved into the back row by
Miss Dacre, won't you?'

'Yes, dear—yes, dear; I'll see to that too; but I must be off now; and you'd better see after lodgings; I hear that they are very scarce. If you aren't able to get any, come up to the Hen and Chickens; I hear they have rooms to let there. Poor little girls!' he murmured to Williams as they got into a cab. 'They only have twenty-five bob a week; one can't see them robbed by landladies who can let their rooms three times over.'

'Just as you like,' said Williams, 'but you'll have the hotel full of them.'

As they drove through the town Dick called attention to the animated appearance of the crowds, and Williams explained the advantages of the corners he had chosen; and at last the cab stopped at the inn, or rather before the archway of a stone passage some four or five yards wide.

'There's no inn here!'

'Oh yes, there is, and a very nice inn too; the entrance is a little way up the passage.'

It was an old-fashioned place—probably it had been a fashionable resort for sporting squires at the beginning of the century. The hall was wainscotted in yellow painted wood; on the right-hand side there was a large brown press, with glass doors, surmounted by a pair of buffalo horns; on the opposite wall hung a barometer; and the wide, slowly sloping staircase, with its low thick banisters, ascended in front of the street door. The apartments were not, however, furnished with archaeological correctness.

A wall-paper of an antique design contrasted with a modern tablecloth, and the sombre red curtains were ill suited to the plate-glass which had replaced the narrow windows of old time. Dick did not like the dust nor the tarnish, but no other bed and sitting-room being available, a bargain was soon struck, and the proprietor, after hoping that his guests would be comfortable, informed them that the rule of his house was that the street door was barred and locked at eleven o'clock, and would be reopened for no one.

He was a quiet man who kept an orderly house, and if people could not manage to be in before midnight he did not care for their custom. After grumbling a bit, Dick remembered that the pubs closed at eleven, and as he did not know anyone in the town there would be no temptation to stay out.

Williams, who had been attentively examining Kate, said that he was going down to the theatre, and asked if he should have the luggage sent up.

This was an inconvenient question, and as an explanation was impossible before the hotel-keeper, Dick was obliged to wish Kate good-bye for the present, and accompany Williams down to the theatre.

She took off her bonnet mechanically, threw it on the table, and, sitting down in an armchair by the window, let her thoughts drift to those at home.

Whatever doubt there might have been at first, they now knew that she had left them—and for ever.

The last three words cost her a sigh, but she was forced to admit them. There could be no uncertainty now in Ralph's and his mother's mind that she had gone off with Mr. Lennox. Yes, she had eloped; there could be no question about the fact. She had done what she had so often read of in novels, but somehow it did not seem at all the same thing.

This was a startling discovery to make, but of the secret of her disappointment she was nearly unconscious; and rousing herself from the torpor into which she had fallen, she hoped Dick would not stop long away. It was so tiresome waiting. But soon Miss Leslie came running upstairs.

'Dinner has been ordered for five o'clock, and we've made up a party of four—you, Dick, myself, and Frank.'

'And what time is it now?'

'About four. Don't you think you'll be able to hold out till then?'

'Oh, dear me, yes; I'm not very hungry.'

'And I'll lend you anything you want for to-night.'

'Thanks, it's very kind of you.' Kate fell to wondering if her kindness had anything to do with Dick, and with the view to discovering their secret, if they had one, she watched them during dinner, and was glad to see that Mr. Frank Bret occupied the prima donna's entire attention.

Soon after dinner the party dispersed.

'You'll not be able to buy anything to-night,' Dick said, and Kate answered:

'Leslie said she'd lend me a nightgown.'

'And to-morrow you'll buy yourself a complete rig-out,' and he gave her five-and-twenty pounds and told her to pal with Leslie, that she was the best of the lot. It seemed to her quite a little fortune, and as Dick had to go to London next morning, she sent up word to Leslie to ask if she would come shopping with her. The idea of losing her lover so soon frightened her, and had it not been for the distraction that the buying of clothes afforded her the week she spent in Derby would have been intolerable. Leslie, it is true, often came to sit with Kate, and on more than one occasion went out to walk with her. But there were long hours which she was forced to pass alone in the gloom of the hotel sitting-room, and as she sat making herself a travelling dress, oppressed and trembling with thoughts, she was often forced to lay down her work.