r want of hair-pins she
was forced to leave hanging over her shoulders.

When she sallied forth once more she found Herrick waiting for her with
a tiny tea-tray.

"You must have a cup of tea before you go." He poured it out as he
spoke. "And a biscuit--one of Mrs. Swastika's specialities. She's an
excellent cook, and proud of her cakes, so do try one--to please me--and
her!"

Toni drank the tea gratefully and found both it and the little cakes
delicious. The next thing to do was to collect her soaked clothes, and
in spite of Herrick's protests that Mrs. Swastika would see to their
safe return she crammed them ruthlessly into the suit-case before going
out to the waiting motor.

As she shook hands with Herrick, after thanking him very prettily for
his kindness, Toni ventured a shy invitation.

"Will you come to see us at Greenriver, Mr. Herrick? I'm sure my husband
will wish to thank you for fishing me out of the river."

"Thanks," he said quietly. "I will certainly come. It will give me great
pleasure to meet Mr. Rose."

He tucked her into the car, shook hands again, and then stood
bare-headed in the sunshine watching the motor spin round the white and
dusty road.

At the bend Toni turned and waved her hand to him gaily, and he
responded with a smile, which faded as the car vanished from sight.

Somehow his meeting with the girl had saddened him oddly. There was
something rather pathetic about Toni at this moment of her existence,
though it would have been hard to say exactly wherein the pathos lay. In
spite of himself Herrick was haunted by the little picture she had drawn
of her life with Owen Rose. He could fancy the two sitting together at
night in the lamp-lit drawing-room, the man writing, or trying to write,
as though alone, the young wife sitting silently by doing nothing, or
playing quiet little games with her dog to relieve the monotony of an
evening uncheered by any interesting book or engrossing study.

A worker himself, Herrick knew very well the deadening influence exerted
by an unoccupied companion during working hours; and the fact that Toni
did not care for books, and confessed to non-comprehension of her
husband's work, struck Herrick as unfortunate, to say the least.

To this man, forced by circumstance into a more or less secluded state
of life, Toni's lack of social experience weighed very lightly. She had
not, perhaps, the manner or style of the girls one met in Mayfair or
Belgravia,