, making improvements and
preparing to settle down there. And he's actually getting ready to write
a life of his father, the General--that's the most surprising thing! They
never met but to strike fire while the General was alive. It appears that
Jerry and Cecil Grainger and one or two other people have some of the old
gentleman's letters, and that's the reason why Hugh's come to Newport.
And the strangest thing about it, my dear," added Mrs. Shorter,
inconsequently, "is that I don't think it's a love affair."

Honora laughed again. It was the first time she had ever heard Mrs.
Shorter attribute unusual human phenomena to any other source. "He wrote
Jerry that he was coming back to live on the estate,--from England. And
he wasn't there a week. I can't think where he's seen any women--that
is," Mrs. Shorter corrected herself hastily, "of his own class. He's been
in the jungle--India, Africa, Cores. That was after Sally Harrington
broke the engagement. And I'm positive he's not still in love with Sally.
She lunched with me yesterday, and I watched him. Oh, I should have known
it. But Sally hasn't got over it. It wasn't a grand passion with Hugh. I
don't believe he's ever had such a thing. Not that he isn't capable of
it--on the contrary, he's one of the few men I can think of who is."

At this point in the conversation Honora thought that her curiosity had
gone far enough.

CHAPTER IV

THE VIKING

She was returning on foot from the bank in Thames Street, where she had
deposited her legacy, when she met him who had been the subject of her
conversation with Mrs. Shorter. And the encounter seemed--and was--the
most natural thing in the world. She did not stop to ask herself why it
was so fitting that the Viking should be a part of Vineland: why his
coming should have given it the one and final needful touch. For that
designation of Reginald Farwell's had come back to her. Despite the fact
that Hugh Chiltern had with such apparent resolution set his face towards
literature and the tillage of the land, it was as the Viking still that
her imagination pictured him. By these tokens we may perceive that this
faculty of our heroine's has been at work, and her canvas already
sketched in.

Whether by design or accident he was at the leafy entrance of her lane
she was not to know. She spied him standing there; and in her leisurely
approach a strange conceit of reincarnation possessed her, and she smiled
at the contrast th