“I’d better go, hadn’t I?” said Miss Pringle with manifest reluctance.

“I’m afraid you must:  I’m sorry.”

“Couldn’t I go up to your room and wait there?  I do so want to know about the will.”

Nora hesitated a moment.  She didn’t want to take Miss Pringle up to her bare little room.  A sort of loyalty to the woman who was, after all, to be her benefactress—­for was she not, after all, with her legacy, going to make the happy future pay rich interest for the unhappy past?—­made her reluctant to let anyone know how poorly she had been lodged.

“No,” she said; “I’ll tell you what, stay here in the garden.  They want to catch the four-something back to London.  And, later, we can have a cozy little tea all by ourselves.”

“Very well.  Oh, my dear,” said Miss Pringle with emotion, “I’m so sincerely happy in your good luck!”

Nora was genuinely moved.  She leaned over and kissed Miss Pringle, her eyes filling with quick tears.

Then she went into the house.  The Wickhams were already in the drawing-room.  Mrs. James Wickham was a pretty young woman, a good ten years younger than her unattractive husband.  Of the two, Nora preferred Mr. Wickham.  There was a certain cynicism about her insincerity which his, somehow, lacked.  Even now, they wore their rue with a difference.

Mrs. Wickham’s mourning was as correct and elegant as a fashionable dressmaker could make it; the very latest thing in grief.  Mr. Wickham was far less sumptuous.  Beyond the customary band on his hat and a pair of black gloves conspicuously new, he had apparently made little expenditure on his costume.  As Nora entered, Mrs. Wickham was pulling off her gloves.

“How do yon do?” she said carelessly.  “Ouf!  Do put the blinds up, Miss Marsh.  Really, we needn’t be depressed any more.  Jim, if you love me, take those gloves off.  They’re perfectly revolting.”

“Why, what’s wrong with them!  The fellow in the shop told me they were the right thing.”

“No doubt; I never saw anyone look quite so funereal as you do.”

“Well,” retorted her husband, “you didn’t want me to get myself up as if I were going to a wedding, did you?”

“Were there many people?” said Nora hastily.

The insolence of Mrs. Wickham’s glance was scarcely veiled.

“Oh, quite a lot,” she drawled.  “The sort of people who indulge in other peoples’ funerals as a mild form of dissipation.”

“I hope Wynne will look sharp,” said her husband hastily, looking at his watch.  “I don’t want to miss that train.”

“Who were all those stodgy old things who wrung your hand afterwards, Jim?” asked his wife.  She was moving slowly about the room picking up the various little objects scattered about and examining the contents of one of the cabinets with the air of an appraiser.

“I can’t think.  They did make me feel such a fool.”

“Oh, was that it?” laughed his wife.  “I saw you looking a perfect owl and I thought you were giving a very bad imitation of restrained emotion.”