She threw a letter towards me. She chucked it with all her old gracious
dexterity. It was dated from Monte Carlo, and ran thus:--

'As we don't seem quite to hit it off, I think I may as well finish this
business of our marriage. The shortest way to make things clear to your
very limited intelligence is to assure you that you are not my wife at
all. Before I married you I was the husband of the Live Mermaid. She has
died since then, and I might have married you over and over again; but I
was not quite so infatuated. I shall just run across and settle up about
this little affair on Wednesday. As you are five miles from the station,
as the weather is perfectly awful, as moreover I am a luxurious,
self-indulgent baronet and as this story would never get on unless I
walked, don't send to meet me. I would _rather_ walk.'

Here was a pretty letter from a fond husband. 'But, ha! proud noble,' I
whispered to my heart, 'you and me shall meet to-morrow.'

'And where are you staying, Philippa?' I repeated, to lead the
conversation into a more agreeable channel.

'With a Mrs. Thompson,' she replied; 'a lady connected with Sir Runan.'

'Very well, let me call for your things tomorrow. I can pass myself off
as your brother, you know.'

'My half-brother,' said Philippa, blushing, 'on the mother's side.'

The brave girl thought of _everything_. The child of white parents, I
should have in vain pretended to be Philippa's full brother. They would
not have believed me had I sworn it.

'Don't you think,' Philippa continued, as a sudden thought occurred to
her, 'that as it is almost midnight and snowing heavily it would be more
proper for me to return to Mrs. Thompson's?'

There was no contesting this.

We walked together to the house of that lady, and at my suggestion
Philippa sought her couch. I sat down and awaited the advent of Mrs.
Thompson. She soon appeared.

A woman of about five-and-thirty, with an aquiline face, and a long,
dark, silky beard sweeping down to her waist. Whatever this woman's
charms might have been for me when I was still in the profession, she
could now boast of very few. Doubtless she had been in Sir Runan's show,
and was one of his victims.

I apologised for the lateness of my call, and entered at once on
business.

Mrs. Thompson remarked that 'my sister's health was not as it should
be,'--not all she could wish.

'I do not wish to alarm you; no doubt you, her brother, are _used_ to
it; but, for