ensations in the
Stiglmeyerplatz at Munich.

It took place on the second day. This time Redgrave did not wait upon
accident; he sent a note, begging that he might have the pleasure of
another talk with her. He would call at a certain hour, and take his
chance of finding her at home. When he presented himself, Alma was
sitting in the common room of the _pension_ with two German ladies;
they in a few minutes withdrew, and familiar conversation became
possible. As the windows stood open, and there were chairs upon the
balcony, Redgrave shortly proposed a move in that direction. They sat
together for half an hour.

When Redgrave took his leave, it was without shaking of hands--with no
_Auf Wiedersehen_. He smiled, he murmured civilities; Alma neither
smiled nor spoke. She was pale, and profoundly agitated.

So this was his meaning?--made plain enough at last, though with the
most graceful phrasing. Childish vanity and ignorance had forbidden her
to dream of such an issue. She had not for a moment grasped the
significance to a man of the world of the ruin and disgrace fallen upon
her family. In theory she might call herself an exile from the polite
world; none the less did she imagine herself still illumined by the
social halo, guarded by the divinity which doth hedge a member of the
upper-middle class. Was she not a lady? And who had ever dared to offer
a lady an insult such as this? Shop-girls, minor actresses, the
inferior sort of governess, must naturally be on their guard; their
insecurity was traditional; novel and drama represented their moral
vicissitudes. But a lady, who had lived in a great house with many
servants, who had founded an Amateur Quartet Society, the hem of whose
garment had never been touched with irreverent finger--could _she_
stand in peril of such indignity?

Not till now had she called to mind the forewarnings of Sibyl Carnaby,
which, at the time of hearing them, she did not at all understand.
'People,' said Sibyl, 'would approach her with strange ideas.' This she
might have applied to the grotesque proposal (as it seemed to her) of
Felix Dymes, or to the risk of being tempted into premature publicity
by a business offer from some not very respectable impresario. What
Sibyl meant was now only too clear; but how little could Mrs. Carnaby
have imagined that her warning would be justified by one of her own
friends--by a man of wealth and consideration.

She durst not leave the house for fear of