him--and
struggled to the surface, and seized the bank, gasping and
exhausted.

His first thought was to turn round and look for his adversary.
The poacher was by the bank too, a few feet from him. His cap had
fallen off in the struggle, and, all chance of concealment being
over, he too had turned to face the matter out, and their eyes
met.

"Good God! Harry! is it you?"

Harry Winburn answered nothing; and the two dragged their feet
out of the muddy bottom, and scrambled on to the bank, and then
with a sort of common instinct sat down, dripping and foolish,
each on the place he had reached, and looked at one another.
Probably two more thoroughly bewildered lieges of her Majesty
were not at that moment facing one another in any corner of the
United Kingdom.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

MARY IN MAYFAIR

On the night which our hero spent by the side of the river, with
the results detailed in the last chapter, there was a great ball
in Brook-street, Mayfair. It was the height of the season, and of
course, balls, concerts, and parties of all kinds were going on
in all parts of the Great Babylon, but the entertainment in
question was _the_ event of that evening. Persons behind the
scenes would have told you at once, had you happened to meet
them, and enquire on the subject during the previous ten days,
that Brook-street was the place in which everybody who went
anywhere ought to spend some hours between eleven and three on
this particular evening. If you did not happen to be going there,
you had better stay quietly at your club, or your home, and not
speak of your engagements for that night.

A great awning had sprung up in the course of the day over the
pavement in front of the door, and as the evening closed in,
tired lawyers and merchants, on their return from the City, and
the riders and drivers on their way home from the park, might
have seen Holland's men laying red drugget over the pavement, and
Gunter's carts coming and going, and the police "moving on" the
street boys and servant maids, and other curious members of the
masses, who paused to stare at the preparations.

Then came the lighting up of the rooms, and the blaze of pure
white light from the uncurtained ballroom windows spread into the
street, and the musicians passed in with their instruments. Then,
after a short pause, the carriages of a few intimate friends, who
came early at the hostess's express desire, began to drive up,
and the Hansom cabs of