incomprehensible. She must have known the risk
she was running, and yet she could not stay her hand. She must have
known long before that she loved Jack Meredith, and that she was playing
fast and loose with the happiness of her whole life. She knew that
hundreds of girls around her were doing the same, and, with all shame
be it mentioned, not a few married women. But they seemed to be able
to carry it through without accident or hindrance. And illogically,
thoughtlessly, she blamed her own ill-fortune.

She stood looking blankly at the door which had closed behind three
men--one old and two young--and perhaps she realised the fact that such
creatures may be led blindly, helplessly, with a single hair, but that
that hair may snap at any moment.

She was not thinking of Guy Oscard. Him she had never loved. He had only
been one of her experiments, and by his very simplicity--above all, by
his uncompromising honesty--he had outwitted her.

It was characteristic of her that at that moment she scarcely knew the
weight of her own remorse. It sat lightly on her shoulders then, and it
was only later on, when her beauty began to fade, when years came and
brought no joy for the middle-aged unmarried woman, that she began to
realise what it was that she had to carry through life with her. At that
moment a thousand other thoughts filled her mind--such thoughts as one
would expect to find there. How was the world to be deceived? The
guests would have to be put off--the wedding countermanded--the presents
returned. And the world--her world--would laugh in its sleeve. There lay
the sting.

CHAPTER XLII. A STRONG FRIENDSHIP

Still must the man move sadlier for the dreams
That mocked the boy.

"Where are you going?" asked Meredith, when they were in the street.

"Home."

They walked on a few paces together.

"May I come with you?" asked Meredith again.

"Certainly; I have a good deal to tell you."

They called a cab, and singularly enough they drove all the way to
Russell Square without speaking. These two men had worked together for
many months, and men who have a daily task in common usually learn to
perform it without much interchange of observation. When one man gets
to know the mind of another, conversation assumes a place of secondary
importance. These two had been through more incidents together than
usually fall to the lot of man--each knew how the other would act and
think under given circumstanc