e hat to its box.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

ADRIFT.

Mary spent a week in the London hotel, the longest week she had ever
known. She rose late, and went to bed early, nevertheless the days
stretched to an interminable length, and she was driven to extraordinary
devices to get through the hours. One day, attracted by a line of
flaring posters, she spent the morning in a Turkish bath; another
afternoon she drifted into a barber's shop and had her hair waved and
coiffured, a process which so altered her appearance that she hurried to
a similar establishment a few hundred yards away, and underwent a
drastic shampoo. Another day, after lunching in the restaurant of a
great store, she whiled away half an hour by having her nails manicured.
From morning till night no one noticed her, no one spoke to her, she
herself had no need to speak, yet all around was a babel of tongues, an
endless, ever-passing stream of fellow-creatures. If she had felt
herself superfluous in Chumley, the feeling was accentuated a thousand
times in this metropolis of the world, wherein she walked as on a desert
island. And yet, through all the desolation of soul pierced golden
moments, when the sense of freedom filled her with joy. To be able to
rest without comment or questioning; to rise in the morning, and retire
to bed, according to preference, not rule; to choose her own food, to go
out, or stay within, as fancy prompted,--such simple matters as these
came as happy novelties to the woman of thirty-two.

Mary had despatched a post card announcing her arrival, and giving the
address of her hotel but she received no message in reply. Mrs
Mallison was on her dignity, and would wait until she had received an
orthodox letter. The Major never wrote, and Teresa presumably was busy.
For a week or more the silence caused Mary no trouble, but by that time
the continued silence of her life awoke the exile longing for news from
home. She despatched a colourless letter, filling with difficulty three
sides of a sheet, and waited the result. It came, according to her
happiest hopes, in the shape of a missive from Teresa.

"Dear old Mary,

"I hope you are enjoying your liberty as much as you expected, and
having a real good time. It's pretty strenuous here without you. I
am running about all day long, and being instructed meantime to lie
down, and take things easy! I never in my life felt so irritated and
depressed. It's borne in on m