s of Sin--which,
as good Christians, they ought never to have earned.

Mr. Bernard Falcon, on the other hand, in his private life, aimed at
nothing more than respectability in the worst sense of the word. His
wife and his two little girls went to church. He himself went on Sunday
mornings when he had no more pressing engagements. His name appeared
regularly on the subscription lists published in connection with St.
Michael's, Brondesbury, his parish church, and he also paid the rent of
No. 15, Melville Gardens, Brook Green, in addition to one hundred and
fifty pounds a year as what he would have called "a retainer" to Miss
Dora Russell--to say nothing of certain milliner's and jeweller's bills
which he liquidated, sometimes cheerfully and sometimes grudgingly,
according to his humour and their amount.

When Carol and Dora got out of their cab at the door of the "West End"
and went into the little vestibule-bar to the left, they found two men
in evening dress waiting for them. One of them--a man of about forty,
bald on the temples, of medium height, well-fed and well-groomed, and
not by any means bad-looking, though of an entirely mediocre type--Carol
greeted with the easy familiarity of old acquaintance, for she had known
him for nearly a year as Dora's 'particular friend.' The other, tall,
well-built, handsome, and with that unmistakable stamp of breeding on
him which Mr. Bernard Falcon totally lacked, she instantly recognised as
Reginald Garthorne, her intended companion for the evening.

The first thing he did when they had been introduced by Bernard Falcon,
was to apologise for what he had said in front of the Criterion the
night before. He did it with admirably calculated deference, and in such
perfectly chosen words, that it was quite impossible for her not to
accept his apology and "make friends."

During the evening he became completely fascinated, not only by her
beauty, but far more so by the extraordinary charm of her manner. He
was a man who, apart from his physical qualities and good looks, could,
when he chose, make himself very pleasing to women, and, without showing
a trace of effort, he did his very best to please Miss Carol, and
succeeded so completely, that when, a few days later, he made a proposal
of a partly domestic nature to her, she, after a brief consultation with
Dora, accepted it.

At the end of the month the house in Melville Gardens was to let, and
Carol and Dora were installed in a fl