igned melancholy, one of
those moods which are the aromatic cerements of a dead love, I
discovered in myself an increasingly active desire to know what had
happened to her. Because I didn't even know for certain whether she had
married M. Nikitos. And when we got home once more and young Siddons
bade us farewell to go up to sit for his examination, I was disappointed
that, as far as I could see, the longing I had to follow the Macedoines
in their strange career was not to be gratified. But this so often
happens in my life that I am grown resigned. We sailed again, for
Venice this time, and I admit that among the canals and palaces, with
the extraordinary moods which that fair city evokes, I found my thoughts
retiring from Ipsilon. We went to Spain to load that voyage, moreover,
and that brought its own sheaf of alien impressions. Loaded in
Cartagena, and in due course arrived at our old berth in the Queens
Dock. All that is of no moment just now. What I was going to say was
that I found among my few letters on arrival an envelope, addressed in
an unfamiliar hand and with the crest of a great London hotel on the
back. I opened it with only mild curiosity, saw it was addressed to
'Dear Mr. Chief,' and turning the page, saw it was signed 'A. M.'

"Yes, it was from her. It was a short, hurried scrawl in a rambling yet
firm style, the down strokes heavy and black, half a dozen lines to the
sheet. She wanted to see me. I turned it over and saw the date on the
envelope was a week old. She wanted to see me if I was able to come to
London. I was to ask for Madame Kinaitsky. She would be in London for
two or three weeks. She did hope I could come. She had found out from
the Company that the _Manola_ was due soon. And she was 'mine very
sincerely.'

"I admit I was, as they say, intrigued. I had given up all hope of
hearing any more of her. And I was astonished. She was in London! I was
to ask for Madame Kinaitsky. Was she married then, after all? I told
Jack I had to go to London on family business, and took train that
night, wiring to her that I would see her next day. I needed a spell
from the ship, anyhow.

"I did not, of course, put up at the immense and famous caravanserai
from which she wrote. It was in the Strand, however, and the ancient and
supposedly very inconvenient hotel which I usually patronize when in the
metropolis was, as we say, just off the Strand. I took a room at Mason's
Hotel, climbed up the dusky old sta