s, through the branches of which could be seen the Snowy Range
bathed in the soft afterglow of a lurid sunset. Preceding her was a
Lepcha boy from Sikkim, carrying her trunk mountaineer fashion on his
back, strapped to his forehead; and it was a mystery how he lifted
himself as well as his burden up the short cuts, without pausing to draw
breath.

CHAPTER XXV

THE MEETING

While Joyce climbed the road preceded by her Lepcha coolie, a scene of
dramatic possibilities was taking place in a room of the hotel to which
she was bound.

It was Mr. Meredith's sitting-room, comfortably furnished; a fire was
burning cheerfully in the grate, and the actors were himself and Mrs.
Dalton, who had called upon him in a crisis of her affairs.

She was eager and excited, bold, and yet somewhat baffled.

He was nervous and uncomfortable, while fidgeting with a letter in his
fingers.

"He has made a rather sporting offer, don't you think?" she asked with
biting sarcasm, her eyes studying his face.

"What are you going to do?"

"Surely!--that's for you to say."

"Me?" (irritably).

"Of course. You know that he and I parted long ago over incompatibility
of temper, and that his offer is made only to save his precious honour.
He has heard rumours! There is no love in it; instead, it is carefully
ruled out. I may return to his protection whenever I like; but as his
wife _only in name_."

"It will be better than this knock-about sort of life you have led, with
an allowance wholly inadequate to your needs" (conciliatingly).

"But is there nothing else in life for a young woman of my years and
temperament? What about you and me?" (tenderly).

Meredith reddened as he said resolutely, "That page will have to be
turned down for good, in the fullest sense of the word."

It was a page of which he was heartily ashamed. The shame was
inevitable, the affair having been, from the first, a comedy of degrees
in which his heart had never been involved; begun while he was a
helpless invalid dependent upon this woman for nursing and
companionship. That she had started the flirtation, and had taken
advantage of his loneliness and temporary weakness to bring him almost
to the verge of a deep dishonour, were memories he would have given much
to forget. Mrs. Dalton was a type of woman he had always held in
contempt; but he had failed to identify her as such, till his normal
health had reasserted itself. Latterly he had allowed himself to