“Hoped you would come,” he cried, shaking hands cordially.  “Why didn’t you look in yesterday?  Miss Elvan ought to have told you that it does me good to see an Englishman.  Here for a holiday?  Blazing hot, but it won’t last long.  South wind.  My wife can’t stand it.  She’s here because of the doctors, but it’s all humbug; there are lots of places in England would suit her just as well, and perhaps better.  Let’s have some tea, Alice, there’s a good girl.  Mr. Warburton looks thirsty, and I can manage a dozen cups or so.  Where’s Winifred?  Let her bring in the kits.  They’re getting shy; it’ll do them good to see a stranger.”

Will stayed for a couple of hours, amused with Mr. Coppinger’s talk, and pleased with the gentle society of the ladies.  The invitation to breakfast being seriously repeated, he rejoiced to accept it.  See how Providence favours the daring.  When Rosamund arrived, she would find him established as a friend of the Coppingers.  He went his way exultingly.

But neither on the morrow, nor the day after, did Winifred receive any news from her sister.  Will of course kept to himself the events of his last two days in London; he did not venture to hint at any knowledge of Rosamund’s movements.  A suspicion was growing in his mind that she might not have left England; in which case, was ever man’s plight more ridiculous than his?  It would mean that Rosamund had deliberately misled him; but could he think her capable of that?  If it were so, and if her feelings toward him had undergone so abruptly violent a change simply because of the discovery she had made—­why, then Rosamund was not Rosamund at all, and he might write himself down a most egregious ass.

Had not an inkling of some such thing whispered softly to him before now?  Had there not been moments, during the last fortnight, when he stood, as it were, face to face with himself, and felt oddly abashed by a look in his own eyes?

Before leaving his lodgings he had written on a piece of paper “Poste Restante, St. Jean de Luz, France,” and had given it to Mrs. Wick, with the charge to forward immediately any letter or telegram that might arrive for him.  But his inquiries at the post-office were vain.  To be sure, weeks had often gone by without bringing him a letter; there was nothing strange in this silence yet it vexed and disquieted him.  On the fourth day of his waiting, the weather suddenly broke, rain fell in torrents, and continued for forty-eight hours.  Had not the Coppingers’ house been open to him he must have spent a wretched time.  Returning to the hotel on the second evening of deluge, he looked in at the post-office, and this time a letter was put into his hand.  He opened and read it at once.