st immediate combustion. There was one little
fragment on top, observable from the beginning; it read:

or night
fferson 4127

These topmost bits refused to respond to poking with the burnt match,
and finally demanded a new match all to themselves. Within two minutes
all were reduced to fine ashes, which the priestess of the rite duly
took to the window, and scattered down into the "court." Then she washed
her hands, put the saucer back under the mug, and raised another window
to let out the smell.

This business completed, Carlisle glanced at her watch. It was ten
minutes past six, or nearly time to begin to dress. The moment was an
interlude in a day which had been full of exciting activity, keyed with
the joy of journey's end and lovers' meeting. An evening in similar
titillating vein waited just ahead. At this moment, Canning, bidden _an
revoir_ some ten minutes ago, was doubtless dressing at his club, seven
blocks away. Mrs. Heth, left to her own resources all afternoon, had
fallen asleep in her chair, and still slept. Even the maid Flora was
absent, having been given the afternoon off, after unpacking two trunks,
to "git to see" her uncle, a personage of authority who served his
country well by sorting letters in the New York Post-Office.

Alone in the hotel bedroom, Carlisle looked in the mirror of the
mahoganized "dresser," occupied in taking off her veil and hat, and
thought that Flora ought to be coming back now. Then she sniffed a
little and was aware of a memorial smell from the rite. After that her
mind appeared to float away for a time, and when she caught up with it
again, it was thinking:

Nothing so much could really have happened, if I _had_ told.

It was an academic thought for a mind which must have known very well
that everything was settled now. Carlisle, assuming charge herself,
promptly turned it out. Having put her hat on the bed, she began to busy
herself with preparations for the evening. Flora lingering at her
avuncular pleasures, she herself went to the closet and took down a
dress. A capable girl she was, who could easily get out her own clothes
when absolutely necessary.

Canning was dining the two ladies at the resplendent establishment of
his choice, at seven-thirty o'clock; he was due to return in an hour
now. All day he had been in attendance, and all day he had been the very
prince of lovers. Having lunched with Mrs. Heth and Carlisle at their
hotel, he and his be