her an account in detail of Anstey's visit, not even omitting the
incident of the cigar.

"And are Dr. Thorndyke's cigars so extraordinarily bad?" she asked.

"Not at all," I replied; "only they are not to every man's taste. The
Trichinopoly cheroot is Thorndyke's one dissipation, and, I must say, he
takes it very temperately. Under ordinary circumstances he smokes a
pipe; but after a specially heavy day's work, or on any occasion of
festivity or rejoicing, he indulges in a Trichinopoly, and he smokes the
very best that can be got."

"So even the greatest men have their weaknesses," Juliet moralised; "but
I wish I had known Dr. Thorndyke's sooner, for Mr. Hornby had a large
box of Trichinopoly cheroots given to him, and I believe they were
exceptionally fine ones. However, he tried one and didn't like it, so he
transferred the whole consignment to Walter, who smokes all sorts and
conditions of cigars."

So we talked on from one commonplace to another, and each more
conventional than the last. In my nervousness, I overdid my part, and
having broken the ice, proceeded to smash it to impalpable fragments.
Endeavouring merely to be unemotional and to avoid undue intimacy of
manner, I swung to the opposite extreme and became almost stiff; and
perhaps the more so since I was writhing with the agony of repression.

Meanwhile a corresponding change took place in my companion. At first
her manner seemed doubtful and bewildered; then she, too, grew more
distant and polite and less disposed for conversation. Perhaps her
conscience began to rebuke her, or it may be that my coolness suggested
to her that her conduct had not been quite of the kind that would have
commended itself to Reuben. But however that may have been, we continued
to draw farther and farther apart; and in that short half-hour we
retraced the steps of our growing friendship to such purpose that, when
we descended from the cab at the prison gate, we seemed more like
strangers than on the first day that we met. It was a miserable ending
to all our delightful comradeship, and yet what other end could one
expect in this world of cross purposes and things that might have been?
In the extremity of my wretchedness I could have wept on the bosom of
the portly warder who opened the wicket, even as Juliet had wept upon
mine; and it was almost a relief to me, when our brief visit was over,
to find that we should not return together to King's Cross as was our
wont, but t