He had told her that he would be away the rest of the day: Mr.Oliver had given him his instructions.

He had refrained from all discussion of the Eastern question, and he had given her no news of the Paris Convention; he only repeated that Mr.Oliver would be back that night.

Then he had gone of in a hurry half-an-hour later.
The old lady seemed asleep when the girl went up afterwards, and Mabel did not like to disturb her.

Neither did she like to leave the house; so she walked by herself in the garden, thinking and hoping and fearing, till the long shadow lay across the path, and the tumbled platform of roofs was bathed in a dusty green haze from the west.
As she came in she took up the evening paper, but there was no news there except to the effect that the Convention would close that afternoon.
* * * * * Twenty o'clock came, but there was no sign of Oliver.

The Paris volor should have arrived an hour before, but Mabel, staring out into the darkening heavens had seen the stars come out like jewels one by one, but no slender winged fish pass overhead.