the hour of nine, he was probably lighting
his first pipe aboard the yacht _Water Nymph_. What did it matter that
she had lifted her hot face from her cushions and had fled in wild haste
to the arms of Phyllis Ayrton? The fact remained the same; it was he who
had run away from her.

That was a terrible reflection. Hitherto she had never felt humiliated.
She had not felt that he had insulted her by his kisses; she had given
him kiss for kiss. She had but to hold up her finger and he was ready
to obey her. But now--what was she to think of him? Had ever man so
humiliated woman? She had offered him, not her heart but her soul--had
he not told her a few days before that he meant her to give him her
soul? and when she had laid heart and soul at his feet--that was how she
put it to herself--he had not considered it worth his while to take the
priceless gift that she offered to him.

"He will answer to me for that," she said, as she thought over her
humiliation, in front of her dressing-glass that morning, while her maid
was absent from the room.

Her wish was now not that her prayer had been less earnest, but that it
had not been uttered at all. It was necessary for her to meet him again
in order that he might explain to her how it came that he had preferred
the attractions incidental to a cruise with Lord Earlscourt and his
friends to all that she had written to offer him.

And yet when her husband, after having quite finished with his paper,
said:

"It's very awkward that Herbert Courtland is not in town."

She merely raised her shoulders an inch, saying:

"I suppose that he has a right to take a holiday now and then. If you
didn't telegraph to him from Paris, you cannot complain."

"I felt certain that I should find him here," said the husband.

"Here?" said the wife, raising her eyebrows and casting an offended
glance at her husband. "Here?"

He smiled in the face of her offended glance.

"Here--in London, I mean, of course. Heavens, Ella! did you fancy for a
moment that I meant----Ah, by the way, you have seen him recently?"

"Oh, yes; quite recently--on Tuesday, I think it was, we met at the
Ayrton's dinner party--yes, it was Tuesday. There was some fuss, or
attempted fuss, about his adventures in New Guinea, and a question was
being asked about the matter in the House of Commons. Mr. Ayrton got rid
of some of his superfluous cleverness in putting a counter question--you
know the way."

"Oh, perfectly we