ay you a visit. Why not? You said it
yourself the other day, but I could not decide. Now I have decided. I
pay you a visit; you receive me privately--can you not? We talk, and
all is settled!"

Olga thought for a moment, and assented. A few minutes afterwards, she
was roiling in a cab towards Bryanston Square.

On Monday evening, Piers received a note from Olga. It ran thus:

"I warned you not to trust me. It is all over now; I have, in your own
words, 'put an end to it.' We could have given no happiness to each
other. Miss Bonnicastle will explain. Good-bye!"

He went at once to Great Portland Street. Miss Bonnicastle knew
nothing, but looked anxious when she had seen the note and heard its
explanation.

"We must wait till the morning," she said. "Don't worry. It's just what
one might have expected."

Don't worry! Piers had no wink of sleep that night. At post-time in the
morning he was at Miss Bonnicastle's, but no news arrived. He went to
business; the day passed without news; he returned to Great Portland
Street, and there waited for the last postal delivery. It brought the
expected letter; Olga announced her marriage that morning to Mr. Florio.

"It's better than I feared," said Miss Bonnicastle. "Now go home to
bed, and sleep like a philosopher."

Good advice, but not of much profit to one racked and distraught with
amorous frenzy, with disappointment sharp as death. Through the warm
spring night, Piers raved and agonised. The business hour found him
lying upon his bed, sunk in dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER XXXII

Again it was springtime--the spring of 1894. Two years had gone by
since that April night when Piers Otway suffered things unspeakable in
flesh and spirit, thinking that for him the heavens had no more
radiance, life no morrow. The memory was faint; he found it hard to
imagine that the loss of a woman he did not love could so have
afflicted him. Olga Hannaford--Mrs. Florio--was matter for a smile; he
hoped that he might some day meet her again, and take her hand with the
old friendliness, and wish her well.

He had spent the winter in St. Petersburg, and was making arrangements
for a visit to England, when one morning there came to him a letter
which made his eyes sparkle and his heart beat high with joy. In the
afternoon, having given more than wonted care to his dress, he set
forth from the lodging he occupied at the lower end of the Nevski
Prospect, and walked to the Hotel de France, n