not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly handsome, a
refined woman of style) ... I bowed ... "Well, I am also fortunate in
having a good voice, it is well-trained, and I am going to London to
sing as a paid professional in the houses in which I have formerly been
a guest."

I sympathised with her, and she continued, weeping, to relate to me
events of her unhappy married life until we arrived at Euston. I saw her
and her maid into a four-wheeler, and I saw their luggage on the top.
She gave me her card with her parents' address in London written on it,
and requested that I would write to her at that address, as she would
like to hear how I got on in London. I never saw her again. But I did
write home, and found there was such a lady, her family were well-known
society people in Ireland, and that her marriage had not been a happy
one.

After three years in London I ran over to Ireland to see my parents. On
my return I seemed to miss the charming companion of my journey over the
same ground three years previously. Two uninteresting men were in the
carriage: a typical German professor on tour, and communicative; and a
typical English gentleman, uncommunicative. As the journey was a long
one the German smoked, ate and drank himself to sleep, and after some
hours the other man and I exchanged a word. The fact is I thought I knew
his face,--I told him so. He thought he knew mine. "Had we gone to
school together?" "No." He was at least ten years my senior. It happened
he had been to school with my half-brother (my father was married
twice,--I am the youngest son of his second family). We chatted freely
about each other's family and on various topics, including the sleeping
Teuton in the corner. I incidentally mentioned my last journey. The lady
interested him, so I told him of the way in which she confessed to me. I
waxed eloquent over her wrongs. He got still more excited as I described
her husband as she described him to me; and as the train rolled into
Euston, he said, "Well, you know who I am, I know who you are,--I'll
tell you one thing more: that woman's story is perfectly true--I'm her
husband!"

That was one of the most extraordinary coincidences which ever happened
to me. Three years after meeting the wife, over the same journey, at the
same time of the year, I meet the husband; and I had never been the
journey in the meantime.

CHAPTER II.

BOHEMIAN CONFESSIO