re solid than the mists themselves.

These pictures, deeply impressed upon him at the moment of actual vision,
remained with Drake during the whole period of his absence, changing a
little, no doubt, as his imagination more and more informed them, but
losing nothing of vividness, rather indeed waxing in it with the gradual
years. One may think of him as he marched on expeditions against hostile
tribes, dwelling upon these recollections as upon the portrait of an
inherited homestead. London, in fact, became to him a living motive, a
determining factor in any choice of action. Whatsoever ambitions he
nourished presumed London as their starting-point. It was then after all
not very singular that on this first night of his return he should make a
pilgrimage to the spot whence he had drawn such vital impressions. For a
long time he stood looking down the grass slope ragged with brambles and
stunted trees, and comprehending the whole lighted city in his glance.

On the way home his mind, which soon tired of a plunge into sentiment,
reverted to the thought of Miss Le Mesurier, and he speculated
unsuccessfully on the motive which had prompted her to send him so
immediate an invitation. The enigmatic interest which she took in him,
gave to him in fact a very definite interest in her. He wondered again
what she was like. Fielding's description helped to pique his curiosity.
All that he knew of her was her surname, and he found it impossible to
infer a face or even a figure from this grain of knowledge. By the time
he reached the Grand Hotel, he was regretting that he had not accepted
her invitation.

CHAPTER III

Drake repeated his question to Fielding two days later, after a dinner
with Conway at his club, but in a tone of languid interest.

'Why don't you ask Mallinson?' said Fielding. 'He knows her better
than I do.'

Conway contested the assertion with some heat.

'Besides,' added Drake, 'his imagination may have been at work. About
women, I prefer the estimate of a man of the world.'

The phrase was distasteful to a gentleman whose ambition it was to live
and to be recognised as living within view of, but outside the world, say
just above it in a placid atmosphere of his own creation. Fielding leaned
back in his chair to mete out punishment, joining the finger-tips with an
air of ordering a detailed statement.

'The inhabitants of Sark,' he began, 'were from immemorial times notable
not merely for their pre