"But they said--they read it out, and----"

"Yes, but they didn't know. It was really Elspeth who won it."

"Elspeth?"

"Yes, dear." Jeremy sighed again. "When Hereward escaped and I went back
for him, I didn't find him as I--er--pretended. So I went to the rose
garden and--and borrowed Elspeth. Fortunately no one noticed it was a
lady blight ... they all took it for Hereward.... But it was really
Elspeth--and belonged to Lady Bendish."

He helped himself to a cigarette from the box.

"It's an interesting point," he said. "I shall go and confess to-morrow
to Sir Thomas, and see what he thinks about it. If he wants the box
back, well and good."

He refilled his glass.

"After all," he said, "the real blow is losing Hereward.
Elspeth--Elspeth is very dear to me, but she can never be quite the
same."

A TRAGEDY OF THE SEA

William Bales--as nice a young man as ever wore a cummerbund on an
esplanade--was in despair. For half an hour he and Miss Spratt had been
sitting in silence on the pier, and it was still William's turn to say
something. Miss Spratt's last remark had been, "Oh, Mr. Bales, you do
say things!" and William felt that his next observation must at all
costs live up to the standard set for it. Three or four times he had
opened his mouth to speak, and then on second thoughts had rejected the
intended utterance as unworthy. At the end of half an hour his mind was
still working fruitlessly. He knew that the longer he waited the more
brilliant he would have to be, and he told himself that even Bernard
Shaw or one of those clever writing fellows would have been hard put to
it now.

William was at odds with the world. He was a romantic young man who had
once been told that he nearly looked like Lewis Waller when he frowned,
and he had resolved that his holiday this year should be a very dashing
affair indeed. He had chosen the sea in the hopes that some old
gentleman would fall off the pier and let himself be saved by--and,
later on, photographed with--William Bales, who in a subsequent
interview would modestly refuse to take any credit for the gallant
rescue. As his holiday had progressed he had felt the need for some such
old gentleman more and more; for only thus, he realised, could he
capture the heart of the wayward Miss Spratt. But so far it had been a
dull season; in a whole fortnight nobody had gone out of his way to
oblige William, and to-morrow he must return to the City as unknown and