Very reluctantly Estelle was at length persuaded to leave; and as she left she turned off the gas in the sitting-room.  A few minutes thereafter Nina, still dressed as she had come home from the theatre, entered the room, re-lit the gas, and noiselessly proceeded to clear a portion of the table, on which she placed writing materials.  Then she went into her bedroom and fetched a little drawer in which she kept her valuables; and the first thing she did was to take out an old-fashioned gold ring she had brought with her from Naples.  She put the ring in an envelope, and (while her eyelids were still heavy with tears, and her cheeks wan and worn) she wrote outside—­“For Estelle.”

CHAPTER XVI.

AN AWAKENING.

London is a dreary-looking city on a Sunday morning, especially on a Sunday morning in November; people seem to know how tedious the hours are going to be, and lie in bed as long as they decently can; the teeming and swarming capital of the world looks as if it had suddenly grown lifeless.  When Lionel got up, there was a sort of yellow darkness in the air; hardly a single human being was visible in the Green Park over the way; a solitary saunterer, hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat, who wandered idly along the neglected pavement, had the appearance of having been out all night, and of not knowing what to do with himself, now that what passed for daylight had come.  All of a sudden there flashed into the brain of this young man standing by the French window a yearning to get away from this dark and dismal town—­there came before him a vision of clear air, of wind-swept waves, with an after-church promenade of fashionable folk in which he might recognize the welcome face of many a friend.  He looked at his watch; there was yet time; he would hurry through his breakfast and catch the 10.45 to Brighton.

But was there nothing else prompting this unpremeditated resolve to get away down to Victoria station?  Not some secret hope that he might perchance descry Lady Cunyngham and her daughter among the crowd swarming on to the long platform?  They had not definitely told him at the theatre that they were returning the next morning; but was it not just possible—­or, rather, extremely probable?  And surely he might presume on their mutual acquaintance so far as to get into the same railway-carriage and have some casual chatting with them on the way down?  He had been as attentive as possible to them on the previous evening; and they had seemed pleased.  And he had tried to arouse in Miss Honnor’s mind some recollection of the closer relationship which had existed between her and him in the solitudes of far Strathaivron.