erdict, the world won't do anything, except laugh at Beadon
Clarke." No serious impression had apparently been left upon society by
the first disagreement of the jury. The "wild mind in the innocent body"
had been accepted for what it was. And perhaps now, chastened by a sad
experience, the wild mind was on the way to becoming tame. Dion wondered
if it were so. After dinner he was undeceived by Daventry, who told him
over their cigars that Mrs. Clarke was positively going back to live in
Constantinople, and had already taken a flat there, "against every one's
advice." Beadon Clarke had got himself transferred, and was to be sent
to Madrid, so she wouldn't run against him; but nevertheless she was
making a great mistake.

"However," Daventry concluded, "there's something fine about her
persistence; and of course a guilty woman would never dare to go back,
even after an acquittal."

"No," said Dion, thinking of the way his hand had been held in Mrs.
Chetwinde's drawing-room. "I suppose not."

"I wonder when Rosamund will get to know her," said Daventry, with
perhaps a slightly conscious carelessness.

"Never, perhaps," said Dion, with equal carelessness. "Often one
lives for years in London without knowing, or even ever seeing, one's
next-door neighbor."

"To be sure!" said Daventry. "One of London's many advantages, or
disadvantages, as the case may be."

And he began to talk about Whistler's Nocturnes. Dion had never
happened to tell Daventry about Jimmy Clarke's strained hip and his own
application of Elliman's embrocation. He had told Rosamund, of course,
and she had said that if Robin ever strained himself she should do
exactly the same thing.

That night, when the Daventrys had gone, Dion asked Rosamund whether
she thought Beattie was happy. She hesitated for a moment, then she said
with her usual directness:

"I'm not sure that she is, Dion. Guy is a dear, kind, good husband to
her, but there's something homeless about Beattie somehow. She's living
in that pretty little flat in De Lorne Gardens, and yet she seems to
me a wanderer. But we must wait; she may find what she's looking for. I
pray to God that she will."

She did not explain; he guessed what she meant. Had she, too, been a
wanderer at first, and had she found what she had been looking for?
While Rosamund was speaking he had been pitying Guy. When she had
finished he wondered whether he had ever had cause to pity some one
else--now and then. De