'Is the man you sent for a lazy, sit-still, do-nothing kind of
man?' she inquired of her father.

'No,' he said surprised; 'quite the reverse. He is Lord
Luxellian's master-mason, John Smith.'

'Oh,' said Elfride indifferently, and returned towards her bleak
station, and waited and shivered again. It was a trifle, after
all--a childish thing--looking out from a tower and waving a
handkerchief. But her new friend had promised, and why should he
tease her so? The effect of a blow is as proportionate to the
texture of the object struck as to its own momentum; and she had
such a superlative capacity for being wounded that little hits
struck her hard.

It was not till the end of half an hour that two figures were seen
above the parapet of the dreary old pile, motionless as bitterns
on a ruined mosque. Even then Stephen was not true enough to
perform what he was so courteous to promise, and he vanished
without making a sign.

He returned at midday. Elfride looked vexed when unconscious that
his eyes were upon her; when conscious, severe. However, her
attitude of coldness had long outlived the coldness itself, and
she could no longer utter feigned words of indifference.

'Ah, you weren't kind to keep me waiting in the cold, and break
your promise,' she said at last reproachfully, in tones too low
for her father's powers of hearing.