at is he anxious about? Mr. Watts seemed anxious also to get
rid of us. He was vexed that Mrs. Watts is too much indisposed to
accompany us. And Mr. Warren Hastings, who was to escort us, was quite
angry because he had to go to one of the out-factories instead. I do not
understand why these gentlemen are so much disturbed."

Desmond saw that Mrs. Merriman had been deliberately kept in ignorance of
the grounds of the Englishmen's anxiety, and was seeking on the spur of
the moment for a means to divert her from the subject, when he was spared
the necessity. Miss Merriman had been looking at him curiously, and she
now turned to her mother and said something in a tone inaudible to
Desmond.

"La! you don't say so, my dear," exclaimed the lady.

"Why. Mr. Burke, my daughter tells me that we have met you before."

His vague recollection of Mrs. Merriman's voice being thus so suddenly
confirmed, he recalled, as from a far distant past, a scene upon Hounslow
Heath; a coach that stood perilously near the ditch, a girl at the
horses' heads, a lady stamping her foot at two servants wrestling in
drunken stupidity on the ground.

"You never gave us an opportunity of thanking you," continued Mrs.
Merriman. "'Twas not kind of you, Mr. Burke, to slip away thus without a
word after doing two poor lone women such a service."

"Indeed, ma'am, 'twas with no discourteous intention, but seeing you were
safe with your friends I--I--in short, ma'am--"

Desmond stopped in confusion, at a loss for a satisfactory explanation.
The ladies were smiling.

"You thought to flee our acknowledgments," said Mrs. Merriman. "La, la, I
know; I have a young brother of my own. But you shall not escape them
now, and what is more, I shall see that Merriman, poor man, adds his, for
I am sure he has forgiven you your exploit."

The younger lady laughed outright, while Desmond looked from one to the
other. What did they mean?

"Indeed, ma'am," he said, "I had no idea--"

"That there was need for forgiveness?" said the lady, taking him up. "But
indeed there was-eh, Phyllis?

"Mr. Burke," she added, with a sudden solemnity, "a few minutes after you
left us at Soho Square Merriman rode up, and I assure you I nearly
swooned, poor man! and hardly had strength to send for the surgeon. It
needed three stitches--and he such a handsome man, too."

A horrid suspicion flashed through Desmond's mind. He remembered the scar
on Mr. Merriman's brow, and that i