cotton umbrella, which was at once turned inside out.  Holding her satchel with one hand and struggling to keep her hat on her head with the other, she was trying to reach the shelter of the station, where a faint light was shining, when the violence of the wind and rain drove her backwards, almost into the arms of a young man hurrying past her, in a slouched hat and water-proof coat.  Thinking him an official, she seized his arm and said, “Oh, please, sir, tell me is there any one here from Mrs. Biggs’s, or any way to get there?”

Her question was inopportune, for at that moment the stranger’s umbrella met a like fate with her own, and was turned inside out, while hers, loosened by the opening of her hand, went sailing off into the darkness and rain.  She thought she heard an oath before the stranger replied that he knew nothing of Mrs. Biggs, and did not think any conveyance was there at that hour.

“Hallo, Jack!  Is that you? and did you ever know such an infernal storm?  Nearly takes one off his feet.  My umbrella has gone up; so will yours if you open it.  Didn’t see you till I was right on you,” was his next exclamation, as a vivid flash of lightning lit up the platform, and showed Eloise two young men clasping hands within three feet of her.

Howard Crompton had been to the station at the appointed time, and learned of the delay of the train in which he expected his friend.  Later a telephone had told him when the belated train would arrive, and the carriage was again ordered, the coachman grumbling, and the Colonel swearing to himself at having the horses go out in such a storm.  To Howard he said nothing.  That young man had so ingratiated himself into his uncle’s good opinion, as to be nearly master of the situation.  He wrote and answered most of the Colonel’s letters, collected his rents, and looked after his business generally, and did it so well that the Colonel was beginning to feel that he could not get on without him, and to have serious thoughts of making it worth his while to stay indefinitely.

Nothing could have been further from Howard’s wishes than going out so late at night, and in such a storm, but the one unselfish passion of his life was his attachment to Jack Harcourt.  He was not very well pleased with the wetting he got, as his umbrella was turned inside out; nor at all interested in the girl asking so timidly for Mrs. Biggs, and in his pleasure at meeting Jack he forgot her entirely, until the same flash of lightning which showed her the two men showed them her white face, with an appealing expression on it which Jack never passed by, whether it were matron or maid who needed his help.  Who the drooping little figure was, with the water running down her jacket and off her hat in streams, he had no idea from the glimpse he had of her features as the lightning played over them for a moment.  That she was in trouble was evident, and in return to Howard’s greeting, he said, “This is a corker of a storm, and no mistake, and I do believe I am wet through, but,—­” and he spoke a little lower,—­“there’s a girl here near us,—­alone, too, I do believe.”