thing which she could not conceal. And that was emotion--
nothing less. The form of her declaration was dry, almost peremptory--
but not its ton. Her voice faltered just the least bit, she smiled
faintly; and as we were looking straight at each other I observed that
her eye's were glistening in a peculiar manner. She was distressed.
And indeed that Mrs Fyne should have appealed to me at all was in
itself the evidence of her profound distress. "By Jove she's desperate
too," I thought. This discovery was followed by a movement of
instinctive shrinking from this unreasonable and unmasculine affair.
They were all alike, with their supreme interest aroused only by
fighting with each other about some man: a lover, a son, a brother.

"But do you think there's time yet to do anything?" I asked.

She had an impatient movement of her shoulders without detaching herself
from the back of the chair. Time! Of course? It was less than
forty-eight hours since she had followed him to London.--I am no great
clerk at those matters but I murmured vaguely an allusion to special
licences. We couldn't tell what might have happened to-day already.
But she knew better, scornfully. Nothing had happened.

"Nothing's likely to happen before next Friday week,--if then."

This was wonderfully precise. Then after a pause she added that she
should never forgive herself if some effort were not made, an appeal.

"To your brother?" I asked.

"Yes. John ought to go to-morrow. Nine o'clock train."

"So early as that!" I said. But I could not find it in my heart to
pursue this discussion in a jocular tone. I submitted to her several
obvious arguments, dictated apparently by common sense but in reality by
my secret compassion. Mrs Fyne brushed them aside, with the
semi-conscious egoism of all safe, established, existences. They had
known each other so little. Just three weeks. And of that time, too
short for the birth of any serious sentiment, the first week had to be
deducted. They would hardly look at each other to begin with. Flora
barely consented to acknowledge Captain Anthony's presence. Good
morning--good-night--that was all--absolutely the whole extent of their
intercourse. Captain Anthony was a silent man, completely unused to the
society of girls of any sort and so shy in fact that he avoided raising
his eyes to her face at the table. It was perfectly absurd. It was
even inconvenient, embarrassing to her--Mrs Fyne