very soon, in time for your drive, if you don't mind my
leaving you."

"Oh, of course, do as you like, dear."

Lucien D'Arblet was annoyed at her defection, but, of course, having
accepted Mrs. Hazeldine's invitation, there was nothing for it but to go
on with her; so he swallowed his discomfiture as best he could, and
proceeded to make himself agreeable to his hostess.

As to Vera, she turned away and retraced her steps slowly towards St.
Paul's Church. It was a foolish romantic fancy, she could not tell what
impelled her to it, but she felt as though she must go back there once
more.

The church was not closed. She pushed open the swing-door and went in. It
was all hushed and silent and empty. Where so lately the gay throng of
well-dressed men and women had passed in and out, chattering, smiling,
nodding--displaying their radiant toilettes one against the other, there
were only now the dark, empty rows of pews, and the bent figure of one
shabbily-dressed old woman gathering together the prayer-books and
hymn-books that had been tumbled out of their places in the scuffle, and
picking up morsels of torn finery that had dropped about along the nave.

Vera passed by her and went up into the chancel. She stood where Maurice
had stood by the altar rails. A soft, subdued light came streaming in
through the coloured glass window; a bird was chirping high up somewhere
among the oak rafters of the roof, the roar of the street without was
muffled and deadened; the old woman slammed-to the door of a pew, the
echo rang with a hollow sound through the empty building, and her
departing footsteps shuffled away down the aisle into silence.

Vera lifted her eyes; great tears welled down slowly, one by one, over
her cheeks--burning, blistering tears, such as, thank God, one sheds but
once or twice in a lifetime--that seem to rend our very hearts as they
rise.

Presently she sank down upon her knees and prayed--prayed for him, that
he might be happy and forget her, but most of all for herself, that she
might school her rebellious heart to patience, and her wild passion of
misery into peace and submission.

And by degrees the tempest within her was hushed. Then, ere she rose from
her knees, something lying on the ground, within a yard of where she
knelt, caught her eye. It was a little Russia-leather letter-case. She
recognized it instantly; she had often seen Maurice take it out of his
pocket.

She caught at it hungrily and e