s warmth.

"It is not likely," he returned quietly. He struck a match and held it
while she lit her cigarette, and for an instant their fingers touched.
His teeth came down hard on his under-lip. "No, we mustn't meet again,"
he repeated in a low voice.

"Oh, well, you never know," insisted Diana, with cheerful optimism.
"People run up against each other in the most extraordinary fashion. And
I expect we shall, too."

"I don't think so," he said. "If I thought that we should--" He broke
off abruptly, frowning.

"Why, I don't believe you _want_ to meet me again!" exclaimed Diana, with
a note in her voice like that of a hurt child.

"Oh, for that!" He shrugged his shoulders. "If we could have what we
wanted in this world! Though, I mustn't complain--I have had this hour.
And I wanted it!" he added, with a sudden intensity.

"So much that you propose to make it last you for the remainder of your
life?"--smiling.

"It will have to," he answered grimly.

After dinner they made their way back from the restaurant car to their
compartment, and noticing that she looked rather white and tired, he
suggested that she should tuck herself up on the seat and go to sleep.

"But supposing I didn't wake at the right time?" she objected. "I might
be carried past my station and find myself heaven knows where in the
small hours of the morning! . . . I _am_ sleepy, though."

"Let me be call-boy," he suggested. "Where do you want to get out?"

"At Craiford Junction. That's the station for Crailing, where I'm going.
Do you know it at all? It's a tiny village in Devonshire; my guardian is
the Rector there."

"Crailing?" An odd expression crossed his face and he hesitated a
moment. At last, apparently coming to a decision of some kind, he said:
"Then I must wake you up when I go, as I'm getting out before that."

"Can I trust you?" she asked sleepily.

"Surely."

She had curled herself up on the seat with her feet stretched out in
front of her, one narrow foot resting lightly on the instep of the other,
and she looked up at him speculatively from between the double fringe of
her short black lashes.

"Yes, I believe I can," she acquiesced, with a little smile.

He tucked his travelling rug deftly round her, and, pulling on his
overcoat, went hack to his former corner, where he picked up the
neglected writing-pad and began scribbling in a rather desultory fashion.

Very soon her even breathing told him that she s