plans. Cynthia was ill at ease; Mrs. Leland wished to rejoin
her guests at Trouville; Vanrenen, who was anxious to complete certain
business negotiations in Paris, believed that a complete change of
scene and new interests in life would speedily bring Cynthia back to
her own cheery self; while Mrs. Devar, though the abandonment of the
tour meant reversion to a cheap boarding-house, was not sorry that it
had come to an end. In London, she would be more in her element, and,
at any rate, she was beginning to feel cramped through sitting three
in a row in Simmonds's car, after the luxurious comfort of two in the
tonneau of the Mercury.

So it came to pass that on Friday evening, while Medenham was driving
from Cavendish Square to Charing Cross, Cynthia was crossing London on
a converging line from St. Pancras to the Savoy Hotel. Strange,
indeed, was the play of Fate's shuttle that it should have so nearly
reunited the unseen threads of their destinies! Again, a trifling
circumstance conspired to detain Vanrenen in London. One of his
business associates in Paris, rendered impatient by the failure of the
great man to return as quickly as he had promised, arrived in England
by the afternoon service from the Gare du Nord, and was actually
standing in the foyer of the hotel when Vanrenen entered with the
others. As a result of this meeting, the journey to Paris arranged for
Saturday was postponed till Sunday, and on this trivial base was
destined to be built a very remarkable edifice.

It chanced that Mrs. Leland, too, decided to have a day in London, and
she and Cynthia went out early. They returned to lunch at the hotel,
and the girl, pleading lack of appetite, slipped out alone to buy a
copy of Milton's poems. From the book-seller's she wandered into the
Embankment Gardens.

She was a dutiful daughter, and had resolved to obey without question
her father's stern command not to enter again into communication with
a man of whom he so strongly disapproved. But she was not content,
for all that, and the dripping trees and rain-sodden flowers seemed
now to accord with her distraught mood. The fine, though not bright,
interval that had tempted her forth soon gave way to another shower,
and she ran for shelter into the Charing Cross Station of the
Metropolitan Railway. She stood in one of the doorways looking out
disconsolately over the river, when a taxicab drove up and deposited
its occupant at the station. Then some unbidden