not know till later, Walter Dunsmore had at last
been discovered, dead from poison self-administered, in a wretched
lodging in an East End slum. Rupert had been called to identify the body
and he had been able to arrange it so that very little was said at
the inquest, where the customary verdict of "Suicide during temporary
insanity" was duly returned by a quite uninterested jury.

That the last had been heard of the tragedy that had so nearly
overwhelmed his life, Rupert was able now to feel fairly well assured,
and it was therefore in a mood more cheerful than he had known of late
that he started on his journey to Ella's new residence.

He had sent a wire to confirm his letter, and it was in a mood that
was more than a little nervous that she busied herself with her
preparations.

She chose her very simplest gown, and when there was absolutely nothing
more to do she went into their little sitting-room to wait alone by the
fire she had built up there, for it was winter now and today was cold
and inclined to be stormy.

Rupert had not said exactly when she was to expect him, and she sat for
a long time by the fire, starting at every sound and imagining at every
moment that she heard the front-door bell ring.

"I shall not let him feel himself bound," she said to herself with great
decision. "I shall tell him I hope we shall always be friends but that's
all; and if he wants anything more, I shall say No. But most likely
he won't say a word about all that nonsense, it would be silly to take
seriously what he said--there."

To Ella, now, Bittermeads was always "there," and though she told
herself several times that probably Rupert had not the least idea of
repeating what he had said to her--there--and that most likely he was
coming today merely to make a friendly call, and that it would never do
for either of them to think again of what they had said when they were
both so excited and overwrought, yet in her heart she knew a great deal
better than all that.

But she said to herself very often:

"Anyhow, I shall certainly refuse him."

And on this point her mind was irrevocably made up since, after all,
whether Rupert would accept refusal or not would still remain entirely
for him to decide.

At half-past three she heard the garden-gate creak, and when she ran to
the window to peep, she saw with a kind of chill surprise that there was
a stranger coming through.

"Some one he's sent," she said to herself. "He