to
me depths of long-secreted romance in my nature. I mentally began to
swear fealty to her."

"Did she tell you that her husband was away?"

"What specially struck me was that it did not occur to her that her
husband required stating, which was ingenuously impressive. She did not
explain her mother or her uncles, why her husband? Her mental attitude
had a translucent clearness. She wanted a medical man to take charge of
her, and if she had been an amiable, un-brilliant lady who was a member
of the royal house, she would have conversed with me exactly as she
did."

"She was so respectable?"

"She was even a little Mid-Victorian, dear Mary; a sort of clean,
healthy, Mid-Victorian angel."

"There's an incongruousness in the figure in connection with being
obviously in hiding in a lodging-house street." And Mrs. Warren gave
herself to reflection.

"I cannot make it as incongruous as she was. I have not told you all. I
have saved to the last the feature which marked her most definitely as
an Extraordinary Case. I suppose one does that sort of thing from a
sense of drama."

"What else?" inquired Mrs. Warren, roused from her speculation.

"What respectable conclusion _could_ one deduce from the fact that a
letter lay on the table near her, sealed with an imposing coat of arms.
One's eye having accidentally fallen on it, one could, of course, only
avoid glancing at it again, so I recognised nothing definite. Also, when
I was announced unexpectedly, I saw her quickly withdraw her hand from
her lips. She had been kissing a ring she wore. I could not help seeing
that afterwards. My good Mary, it was a ruby, of a size and colour which
recalled the Arabian Nights."

Mrs. Warren began to resign herself.

"No," she said, "there is no respectable conclusion to be drawn. It is
tragic, but prosaic. She has been governess or companion in some great
house. She may be a well-born woman. It is ten times more hideous for
her than if she were a girl. She has to writhe under knowing that both
her friends and her enemies are saying that she had not the excuse of
not having been old enough to know better."

"That might all be true," he admitted promptly. "It _would_ be true
if--but she is not writhing. She is no more unhappy than you or I. She
is only anxious, and I could swear that she is only anxious about one
thing. The moment in which I swore fealty to her was when she said to
me, 'I want to be quite safe--until after. I do no