nd at table, with her voice at my ear. I was
not quite myself yet; I was struggling, as it were, with the effects of
a fantastic dream.

Still, I had determined upon my course. I had made resolutions. I had
ended the chapter of dalliance. I had wished to go to 116 Intermediate
and let its occupant demand what satisfaction he would. I wanted to say
to Hungerford that I was an ass; but that was even harder still. He was
so thorough and uncompromising in nature, so strong in moral fibre, that
I felt his sarcasm would be too outspoken for me just at present.
In this, however, I did not give him credit for a fine sense of
consideration, as after events showed. Although there had been no spoken
understanding between us that Mrs. Falchion was the wife of Boyd Madras,
the mind of one was the other's also. I understood exactly why he told
me Boyd Madras's story: it was a warning. He was not the man to harp on
things. He gave the hint, and there the matter ended, so far as he was
concerned, until a time might come when he should think it his duty
to refer to the subject again. Some time before, he had shown me the
portrait of the girl who had promised to be his wife. She, of course,
could trust HIM anywhere, everywhere.

Mrs. Falchion had seen the change in me, and, I am sure, guessed the new
direction of my thoughts, and knew that I wished to take refuge in a
new companionship--a thing, indeed, not easily to be achieved, as I felt
now; for no girl of delicate and proud temper would complacently regard
a hasty transference of attention from another to herself. Besides, it
would be neither courteous nor reasonable to break with Mrs. Falchion
abruptly. The error was mine, not hers. She had not my knowledge of the
immediate circumstances, which made my position morally untenable. She
showed unembarrassed ignorance of the change. At the same time I
caught a tone of voice and a manner which showed she was not actually
oblivious, but was touched in that nerve called vanity; and from this
much feminine hatred springs.

I made up my mind to begin a course of scientific reading, and was
seated in my cabin, vainly trying to digest a treatise on the pathology
of the nervous system, when Hungerford appeared at the door. With a nod,
he entered, threw himself down on the cabin sofa, and asked for a match.
After a pause, he said: "Marmion, Boyd Madras, alias Charles Boyd, has
recognised me."

I rose to get a cigar, thus turning my face from