d to make it conceivable; but what
Milly hoped for was a sudden illumination of Dick's stupidity; some tug
of unendurable pain or surmise that would bring him back on the chance
of seeing her again. Milly's logic was instinctive, but Christina
believed that it was sound. Dick, she, too, felt sure of it, would come.
She lunched and then she sat at her writing-table and wrote some notes,
looking out at the street, and then, when an hour approached in which a
caller might appear, she went out.

It was one of the suddenly hot days in May that London sometimes offers.
It was so hot that Christina's head, as she walked slowly up Sloane
Street, swam and turned, and the lines of cabs and omnibuses and
carriages in the roadway, upon which she fixed her eyes, seemed to pulse
and float as they went by. Three o'clock had struck. Dick, if he came,
must come before five, and she must walk up and down Sloane Street for
perhaps nearly two hours. If she lay in wait in the house, Milly, who no
doubt was already up and dressed and waiting, would discover her. Milly,
too, might be watching from the drawing-room windows. Her peril was
desperate, and her safest course was to walk on the side of the street
near the house where Milly could not see her. This she did, turning
regularly in her little beat, indifferent to the odd spectacle she must
present, and scanning the passers-by. She had not long to wait.
Half-an-hour had not elapsed, when, in an approaching hansom, she saw
the broad shoulders and perplexed yet resolute features of Dick Quentyn.
He, too, had come to final decisions on this fateful day.

Christina walked towards the hansom smiling. With her opened parasol and
delicate dress of white and black she had the most unalarming and casual
air. She seemed to have just stepped from her own doorway. She had held
up her hand in signal, and Dick, arresting his cabman, sprang out.
Christina greeted him gaily.

"Well, this is very nice. Can you really stop and speak to me? You're
not running a risk of losing your train?"

Dick hardly smiled in answer. His face showed his uncertainty, his
anxiety, his trouble.

"My train? Oh no;--I've over an hour yet. Heaps of time.--In fact--I was
on my way to your house. I thought I'd have a last glimpse of you and
Milly. Are you just going out?"

"Just going out. And as to Milly,--it's too bad," said Christina, "but
she is getting a little sleep this afternoon and particularly asked that
she shoul