his broad shoulders and the great scar on his bronzed
face, his breast was full of terrors. In these, however, he had not
much time to indulge, for a footman, still decked in the trappings of
vicarious grief, opened the door with the most startling promptitude,
and he was ushered upstairs into a small but richly furnished room.

Madeline was not in the room, though to judge from the lace handkerchief
lying on the floor by a low chair, and the open novel on a little wicker
table alongside, she had not left it long. The footman departed, saying,
in a magnificent undertone, that "her ladyship" should be informed, and
left our hero to enjoy his sensations. Being one of those people whom
suspense of any sort makes fidgety, he employed himself in looking at
the pictures and china, even going so far as to walk to a pair of very
heavy blue velvet curtains that apparently communicated with another
room, and peep through them at a much larger apartment of which the
furniture was done up in ghostly-looking bags.

Retreating from this melancholy sight, finally he took up a position
on the hearthrug and waited. Would she be angry with him for coming? he
wondered. Would it recall things she had rather forget? But perhaps she
had already forgotten them--it was so long ago. Would she be very much
changed? Perhaps he should not know her. Perhaps--but here he happened
to lift his eyes, and there, standing between the two blue velvet
curtains, was Madeline, now a woman in the full splendour of a
remarkable beauty, and showing as yet, at any rate in that dull November
twilight, no traces of her years. There she stood, her large dark eyes
fixed upon him with a look of wistful curiosity, her shapely lips just
parted to speak, and her bosom gently heaving, as though with trouble.

Poor Bottles! One look was enough. There was no chance of his attaining
the blessed haven of disillusionment. In five seconds he was farther
out to sea than ever. When she knew that he had seen her she dropped her
eyes a little--he saw the long curved lashes appear against her cheek,
and moved forward.

"How do you do?" she said softly, extending her slim, cool hand.

He took the hand and shook it, but for the life of him could think of
nothing to say. Not one of the little speeches he had prepared would
come into his mind. Yet the desperate necessity of saying something
forced itself upon him.

"How do you do?" he ejaculated with a jerk. "It--it's very cold,