rnshaw's went out straight.

"Miss Russell," he said, even while her hand was moving slowly towards
his.

"My dear Mr. Ernshaw, whatever you have to say, I'm afraid I will have
to ask you to keep it just for a little," said Sir Arthur, as the door
swung open. "Here is Koda Bux, and he does not allow me to be late for
dinner; he has many virtues, but that is the best of them. Mr. Rayburn,
you will take Carol in? Mr. Ernshaw, will you give your arm to Miss
Russell, and Vane and I will bring up the rear."

"Dad," said Vane, as he gripped his father's arm, "you have helped to do
God's work to-night; look at them!"

"You did more when you got out of the cab at the top of the gardens
here," he whispered in reply.

"I didn't do that, dad; she did. She knew, and I didn't. God bless her."

"Amen," said his father. "And now we will return to earth and go and
eat."

There were not many more delightful dinners eaten in London that night
than what Cecil Rayburn called his betrothal feast. He and Carol now
understood each other thoroughly. Vane and his father also knew the
circumstances so far as they were concerned, and a little more. Ernshaw
and Dora, each knowing just a little more than the others did, began to
make friends fast, and therefore rapidly, but Dora was still
_declassee_. Carol had already been lifted beyond the confines of that
half-sphere which is inhabited by so many thousands of women who are
neither maiden, wife, nor widow. Dora was still a dweller in it, knowing
all its infamy and shame, and knowing, too, that awful necessity which
is so often at once the equivalent and the excuse for sin.

Everyone took Sir Arthur's hint, and the conversation rattled on around
the table as lightly as it might have around any other dinner table in
London. Carol and Sir Arthur and Rayburn had it mostly to themselves at
first, but after a little the conversation grew more general. Dora and
Carol engaged in a really brilliant discussion on the subject of Mrs.
Lynn Linton's last book, with the result that Carol said that she
wouldn't live for ever at any price, to which Dora replied with just a
suspicion of a note of sadness in her voice.

"Yes, Carol, I quite agree with you, or at least if I were you I should
do."

"Which," said Ernshaw, "is, I think, as nearly as possible the same
thing. Surely if one cannot agree with one's self----"

"No, Mr. Ernshaw," said Dora, putting her elbows on the table and her
chin between