ng. How amazed, above all, how shocked and indignant the man for
whom he had so great an affection and respect would feel, if he knew
the picture which was now floating before his son's retrospective
vision!

* * * * *

What had happened had been briefly this: One day in the previous
October, Carden had taken his seat in the afternoon express which
stops at Birmingham on its way from the north to Euston, or rather,
having taken a leisurely survey of the train, which was, as he quickly
noted, agreeably empty, he had indicated to the porter carrying his
bag a carriage in which sat, alone, a singularly pretty woman.

As he afterwards had the delight of telling her, and, as he now
reminded himself with a retrospective thrill of feeling, he had
experienced, when his eyes first met those of the fair traveller, that
incommunicable sensation, part physical, part mental, which your
genuine Lothario, if an intelligent man, always welcomes with
quickening pulse as the foretaste of special zest to be attached to a
coming pursuit.

Carden's instinct as to such delicate questions had seldom played him
false; never less so than on this occasion, for, within an hour, he
and the lovely stranger had reached that delightful stage of intimacy
in which each feels that he and she, while still having much to learn
about the other, are on the verge of a complete understanding.

During the journey of between two and three hours, his travelling
companion had told him a great deal more about herself than he had
chosen to reveal concerning his own life and affairs; he learned, for
instance, that she was the young wife of an old man, and that the old
man was exceedingly jealous. Further, that she found the life she was
compelled to lead "horribly boring," and that a widowed cousin, who
lived near London, and from whom she had "expectations," formed a
convenient excuse for occasional absences from home.

Concerning three matters of fact, however, she completely withheld her
confidence, both then, in those first delicious hours of their
acquaintance, and even later, when their friendship--well, why not say
friendship? for Carden had felt a very strong liking as well as an
over-mastering attraction toward this Undine-like creature--had become
much closer. The first and second facts which she kept closely hidden,
for reasons which should perhaps have been obvious, were her
surname--she confided to him that her Chri