ndered about the corridors, a miserable man. On Sunday
she came down-stairs and drove to church with her mother. Mike
followed, and full of schemes for flight, holding a note ready to
slip into her hand, he wondered if such pallor as hers were for this
side of life. In the note it was written that he would wait all day
for her in the sitting-room, and about five, as he sat holding the
tattered newspaper, his thoughts far away in Naples, Algiers, and
Egypt, he heard a voice calling--

"Mike! Mike! Mother is lying down; I think we can get away now, if
there's a train before half-past five."

Mike did not need to consult the time-table. He said, "At last,
at last, darling, come! ... Yes, there is a train for the Italian
frontier at a few minutes past five. We shall have just time to
catch it. Come!"

But in the gardens they met the Major, who would not hear of his
niece being out after sunset, and sent her back. Mike overtook Lily
on the staircase.

"I can endure this no longer," he said; "you must come with me
to-night when every one is in bed. There is a train at two."

"I cannot; I have to pass through my mother's room. She would be sure
to awake."

"Great Scott! what shall we do? My head is whirling. You must give
your mother a sleeping potion, will you? She drinks something before
she goes to bed?"

"Yes, but----"

"There must be no buts. It is a case of life and death. You do not
want to die, as many girls die. To many a girl marriage is life. I
will get something quite harmless, and quite tasteless."

She waited for him in the sitting-room. He returned in a few minutes
with a small bottle, which he pressed into her hand. "And now, _au
revoir_; in a few hours you will be mine for ever."

After leaving her he dined; after dinner went to a gambling hell,
where he lost a good deal of money, and would have lost more, had the
necessity of keeping at least L200 for his wedding-tour not been so
imperative. He wandered about the streets talking to and sometimes
strolling about with the light women, listening to their lamentable
stories--"anything," he thought, "to distract my mind." He was to
meet Lily on the staircase at one o'clock, and now it was half-past
twelve, and giving the poor creature whose chatter had beguiled the
last half-hour a louis, he returned hurriedly to his hotel.

The lift had ceased working, and he ascended the great staircase,
three steps at a time. On the second floor he stopped to rec