; I can bear anything if you will
only tell me straight out."

"It's Rainham," he murmured. "He died last night at Blackpool. I
heard it from McAllister, at the club."

He looked away from her vaguely out of his window at the pale
streets, where a few lamps were beginning to appear, waiting in a
fever of apprehension, which he vainly sought to justify, for some
word or comment on the part of his wife.

As none came, and the silence grew intolerable, he ventured at last
to glance furtively across at her. Her face seemed to him a shade
paler than before, but that might be exaggerated by the relief of
her rich and sombre furs. Her eyes were quite expressionless and
blank, although she had the air of being immensely thoughtful; her
mouth was inscrutable and unmoved. And he experienced a sudden pang
of horror at the anticipation of a dinner alone with her, with the
ghostly presence of this news dividing them, before he reminded
himself that Colonel Lightmark was to be of the party.

For, perhaps, the first time in his life the prospect of his uncle's
company afforded him a sensation of relief.

CHAPTER XXXI

When Oswyn emerged from the narrow doorway of the gallery in Bond
Street, which on the morrow was to be filled with the heterogeneous
presence of those who, for different reasons, are honoured with
cards of invitation to private views, it was still daylight,
although the lamps had been lighted; and the east wind, which during
the earlier hours of the day had made the young summer seem such a
mockery of flowery illusions, had taken a more genial air from the
south into alliance; and there was something at once caressing and
exhilarating in their united touch as they wandered in gentle eddies
up the crooked thoroughfare.

Oswyn paused upon the pavement, outside the showroom which Mosenthal
called a gallery, gazing up the road towards Oxford Street, with a
momentary appreciation of the subtile early evening charm, which
lent so real a beauty even to a vista of commonplace shop-fronts and
chimney-pots, straightening his bent figure, and wondering whither
to betake himself.

He had not allowed his friend's death to be an excuse for abandoning
the projected exhibition; indeed, when this event occurred, he was
already too far compromised; and he even found the labour involved
in the preparations for the new departure a very welcome
distraction--the one thing which made it possible for the desolate
man to stay