face. At last she saw him by the windows, holding a favour
in his hand, coming in her direction. She looked away, towards the red
uniforms of the Hungarian band on the raised platform at the end of the
room. He was standing beside her.

"Do you remember me, Mrs. Spence?" he asked.

She glanced up at him and smiled. He was not a person one would be likely
to forget, but she did not say so.

"I met you at Mrs. Granger's," was what she said.

He handed her the favour. She placed it amongst the collection at the
back of her chair and rose, and they danced. Was it dancing? The music
throbbed; nay, the musicians seemed suddenly to have been carried out of
themselves, and played as they had not played before. Her veins were
filled with pulsing fire as she was swung, guided, carried out of herself
by the extraordinary virility of the man who held her. She had tasted
mastery.

"Thank you," she faltered, as they came around the second time to her
seat.

He released her.

"I stayed to dance with you," he said. "I had to await my opportunity."

"It was kind of you to remember me," she replied, as she went off with
Mr. Carrington.

A moment later she saw him bidding good night to his hostess. His face,
she thought, had not lost that strange look of determination that she
recalled. And yet--how account for his recklessness?

"Rum chap, Chiltern," remarked Carrington. "He might be almost anything,
if he only knew it."

In the morning, when she awoke, her eye fell on the cotillon favours
scattered over the lounge. One amongst them stood out--a silver-mounted
pin-cushion. Honora arose, picked it up contemplatively, stared at it
awhile, and smiled. Then she turned to her window, breathing in the
perfumes, gazing out through the horse-chestnut leaves at the green,
shadow-dappled lawn below.

On her breakfast tray, amidst some invitations, was a letter from her.
uncle. This she opened first.

"Dear Honora," he wrote, "amongst your father's papers, which have
been in my possession since his death, was a certificate for three
hundred shares in a land company. He bought them for very little,
and I had always thought them worthless. It turns out that these
holdings are in a part of the state of Texas that is now being
developed; on the advice of Mr. Isham and others I have accepted an
offer of thirty dollars a share, and I enclose a draft on New York
for nine thousand dollars. I need not dwell upon the