dian of her
own dignity. If she could have allowed matters to drift along in the
heavenly uncertainty of these last days, there would have been no
problem; but when she was forced to wake from her delicious dream and
fly from everything that held her close and warm, fly during Fergus
Appleton's absence, without his knowledge or consent--that indeed was
heart-breaking. And still her pride showed her but the one course. She
was alone in the world and without means save those earned by her own
exertions. A living income was offered her in America and she must
take it or leave it on the instant. She could not telegraph Fergus
Appleton in London and acquaint him with her plans, as if they
depended on him for solution; she could only write him a warm and
friendly good-bye. If he loved her as much as a man ought who loved at
all, he had time to follow her to Southampton before her ship sailed.
If business kept him from such a hurried journey, he could ask her to
marry him in a sixpenny wire, reply paid. If he neither came nor
wired, but sent a box of mignonette to the steamer with his card and
"Bon voyage" written on it, she would bury something unspeakably dear
and precious that had only just been born--bury it, and plant
mignonette over it. And she could always sing! Thank Heaven for the
gift of song!

This was Tommy's mood when she was packing her belongings, after
hearing the bishop say that Appleton could not return till noon next
day. It had changed a trifle by the time that Fergus had gone to the
corner to whistle for a hansom. Her gray frieze jacket and skirt were
right enough when she hastily slipped on a better blouse with a deep
embroidered collar, pinned with Helena Markham's parting gift of an
emerald clover-leaf. Her gray straw hat had a becoming band of flat
green leaves, and she had a tinge of color. (Nothing better for roses
in the cheeks than hurrying to be ready for the right man.) Anyway,
such beauty as Tommy had was always there, and when she came to the
door she smote Appleton's eyes as if she were "the first beam from the
springing east."

Once in the hansom, they talked gayly. They dared not stop, indeed,
for when they kept on whipping the stream they forgot the depth of the
waters underneath.

* * * * *

Meantime the Green Dragon, competitor of the Swan, had great need of
their lavish and interesting patronage.

The Swiss head waiter, who was new to Wel