pread his countenance.

"To catch trains, no doubt?"

"Not a bit of it! To MEET trains!"

"You mean?"

"I mean that their own private cars were waiting for them at the ARRIVAL
platform as I drove 'em up to the DEPARTURE platform, and that they
simply marched through the station and pretended to have arrived by
train!"

Inspector Dunbar took out his notebook and fountain-pen, and began to
tap his teeth with the latter, nodding his head at the same time.

"You are sure of the accuracy of your last statement?" he said, raising
his eyes to the other.

"I followed one of them," was the reply, "and saw her footman gravely
take charge of the luggage which I had just brought from Victoria; and a
pal of mine followed the other--the Waterloo one, that was."

Inspector Dunbar scribbled busily. Then:--

"You have done well to make a clean breast of it," he said. "Take a
straight tip from me. Keep off the drink!"

X

THE GREAT UNDERSTANDING

It was in the afternoon of this same day--a day so momentous in the
lives of more than one of London's millions--that two travelers might
have been seen to descend from a first-class compartment of the Dover
boat-train at Charing Cross.

They had been the sole occupants of the compartment, and, despite the
wide dissimilarity of character to be read upon their countenances,
seemed to have struck up an acquaintance based upon mutual amiability
and worldly common sense. The traveler first to descend and gallantly to
offer his hand to his companion in order to assist her to the platform,
was the one whom a casual observer would first have noted.

He was a man built largely, but on good lines; a man past his youth, and
somewhat too fleshy; but for all his bulk, there was nothing unwieldy,
and nothing ungraceful in his bearing or carriage. He wore a French
traveling-coat, conceived in a style violently Parisian, and composed of
a wonderful check calculated to have blinded any cutter in Savile Row.
From beneath its gorgeous folds protruded the extremities of severely
creased cashmere trousers, turned up over white spats which nestled
coyly about a pair of glossy black boots. The traveler's hat was of
velour, silver gray and boasting a partridge feather thrust in its
silken band. One glimpse of the outfit must have brought the entire
staff of the Tailor and Cutter to an untimely grave.

But if ever man was born who could carry such a make-up, this
traveler was he. The face wa