t between us for the moment. And I am Charmion Fane's friend, just
as you are Edward Hallett's, and the good, good God is going to give us
the joy of seeing them happy together again. Mr Thorold! they have
both been to blame, they have both had a share in spoiling their own
lives--we won't give them another chance! You and I, as staid,
level-headed outsiders, are going to stage-manage their reconciliation."

"How are we going to manage it?"

"Listen!" I said. "Listen!"

It's a queer world. It's a very queer world! People have said so
before, but I wish to say it again, to shout it aloud at the pitch of my
voice.

Hardly had I changed back into Miss Harding, and finished my evening
meal, when a knock came to the door, and there entered Mrs Travers.
Furious! She had returned from her day in the country; had seen her
husband that afternoon; had heard from his lips what I had dared to
think and to _say_! If she had been defending a homing dove, she could
not have been more outraged, more aflame. She wished me to understand,
once and for all, that for the future _no_ communication, no
acquaintance of any kind was possible between us. She would pass me by
in the street without a glance.

Oh, very well!

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

TWO GLORIFIED BEINGS.

I wired to Charmion, "Return at once. Urgently needed," and her reply
came back with all possible speed, "Meet me Euston--Thursday". I knew
she would come! She would imagine that the need was mine, and, bless
her! would speed night and day to my aid. And what would she find? My
reeling brain refused to realise the dramatic scenes which lay ahead!

After much cogitation I determined to close the flat, and take a small
suite of rooms at an hotel for the next week. Under the circumstances,
it would be a relief to be among strangers, and away from interested
neighbours who might take it into their heads to pay a call at the most
crucial moment, to say nothing of the orphan and her friends in
adjoining flats, who would be exercised about the strange doings in the
basement flat!

So it was as Evelyn Wastneys that I sallied to Euston on that eventful
Thursday, and a somewhat tired and sleepy Charmion was obviously a
trifle disappointed to find that she was not to be taken "home."

"I have had such a dose of hotels!"

"Darling, you talked of my `dreary little flat!'"

"And you wrote back that it was a bower! It has suited you--it is easy
to see that, a