TEM AND
SILVESTER'S. SOCIAL DISADVANTAGES. A CHAT WITH A CENTENARIAN, AND HOW
ROSALIND CAME TO KNOW. THOMAS LOCOCK OF ROCHESTER. ONE O'CLOCK!

"Is that you, Dr. Conrad?" It was Rosalind who spoke, through the
half-open window of her bedroom, to the happy, expectant face of
the doctor in the little front garden below. "I'm only just up, and
they're both gone out. I shall be down in a few minutes." For she had
looked into her husband's room, and then into Sally's, and concluded
they must have gone out together. So much the better! If Sally was
with him, no harm could come to him.

"I don't see them anywhere about," said the doctor. Sally had not been
gone ten minutes, and at this moment had just caught sight of Fenwick
making for the pier. The short cut down took her out of sight of the
house. Rosalind considered a minute.

"Very likely they've gone to the hotel--the 'beastly hotel,' you
know." There is the sound of a laugh, and the caress in her voice, as
she thinks of Sally, whom she is quoting. "Gerry found a friend there
last night--a German gentleman--who was to go at seven-fifty. Very
likely he's walked up to say good-bye to him. Suppose you go to meet
them! How's Mrs. Vereker this morning?"

"Do you know, I haven't seen her yet! We talked rather late, so I
left without waking her. I've been for a walk."

"Well, go and meet Gerry. I feel pretty sure he's gone there." And
thereon Dr. Conrad departed, and so, departing towards the new town,
lost sight for the time being of the pier and the coast. He went by
the steps and Albion Villas, and as he caught a glimpse therefrom
of the pier-end in the distance, had an impression of a man running
along it and shouting; but he drew no inferences, although it struck
him there was panic, with the energy of sudden action, in this man's
voice.

He arrived at the hotel, of course without meeting either Sally or
Fenwick. He had accepted them as probably there, on perhaps too slight
evidence. But they might be in the hotel. Had the German gentleman
gone?--he asked. The stony woman he addressed replied from her
precinct, with no apparent consciousness that she was addressing a
fellow-creature, that No. 148, if you meant him, had paid and gone by
last 'bus. She spoke as to space, but as one too indifferent on all
points to care much who overheard her.

Vereker thanked her, and turned to go. As he departed he caught a
fragment of conversation between her and the waiter wh