day, at the Marble Arch. He went through the gate into the empty Park,
and was crossing the broad road near the entrance, when an open carriage
passed close beside him, and a woman's voice called to the coachman to
stop.

The carriage stopped so abruptly and so near him that he paused and
looked up, in natural wonderment at the circumstance. A lady dressed in
mourning was leaning forward out of the carriage, looking eagerly after
him. A second glance showed him that this lady was Mrs. Branston.

"How do you do, Mr. Fenton," she cried, holding out her little
black-gloved hand: "What an age since I have seen you! But you have not
forgotten me, I hope?"

"That is quite impossible, Mrs. Branston. If I had not been very much
absorbed in thought just now, I should have recognised you sooner. It was
very kind of you to stop to speak to me."

"Not at all. I have something most particular to say to you. If you are
not in a very great hurry, would you mind getting into the carriage, and
letting me drive you round the Park? I can't keep you standing in the
road to talk."

"I am in no especial hurry, and I shall be most happy to take a turn
round the Park with you."

Mrs. Branston's footman opened the carriage-door, and Gilbert took his
seat opposite the widow, who was enjoying her afternoon drive alone for
once in a way; a propitious toothache having kept Mrs. Pallinson within
doors.

"I have been expecting to see you for ever so long, Mr. Fenton. Why do
you never call upon me?" the pretty little widow began, with her usual
frankness.

"I have been so closely occupied lately; and even if I had not been so, I
should have scarcely expected to find you in town at this unfashionable
season."

"I don't care the least in the world for fashion," Mrs. Branston said,
with an impatient shrug of her shoulders. "That is only an excuse of
yours, Mr. Fenton; you completely forgot my existence, I have no doubt.
All my friends desert me now-a-days--older friends than you. There is Mr.
Saltram, for instance. I have not seen him for--O, not for ever so long,"
concluded the widow, blushing in the dusk as she remembered that visit of
hers to the Temple--that daring step which ought to have brought John
Saltram so much nearer to her, but which had resulted in nothing but
disappointment and regret--bitter regret that she should have cast her
womanly pride into the very dust at this man's feet to no purpose.

But Adela Branston was not a