was not so local as Avice's.

'Can you tell me the time, please?'

He looked at his watch by the aid of a light, and in telling her that
it was a quarter past seven observed, by the momentary gleam of his
match, that her eyes looked a little red and chafed, as if with
weeping.

'Mr. Pierston, will you forgive what will appear very strange to you, I
dare say? That is, may I ask you to lend me some money for a day or
two? I have been so foolish as to leave my purse on the dressing-
table.'

It did appear strange: and yet there were features in the young lady's
personality which assured him in a moment that she was not an impostor.
He yielded to her request, and put his hand in his pocket. Here it
remained for a moment. How much did she mean by the words 'some
money'? The Junonian quality of her form and manner made him throw
himself by an impulse into harmony with her, and he responded regally.
He scented a romance. He handed her five pounds.

His munificence caused her no apparent surprise. 'It is quite enough,
thank you,' she remarked quietly, as he announced the sum, lest she
should be unable to see it for herself.

While overtaking and conversing with her he had not observed that the
rising wind, which had proceeded from puffing to growling, and from
growling to screeching, with the accustomed suddenness of its changes
here, had at length brought what it promised by these vagaries--rain.