ocket, then he exclaimed in
an audible aside, his voice shaking with the most affecting thrill,
"_Perhaps_ we may meet again! Only _perhaps!_ O Alicia!" And then dropping
again into a stage whisper, he asked, "Are you still there, Lady Alicia?"

A timorous voice replied, "Yes, Mr Fortescue. But I really _must_ go now!"

"Now? So soon?"

"I have stayed too long already."

"'Tis better to have stayed too long than never to wear stays at all,"
replied Mr Beveridge.

There was no response for a moment. Then a low voice, a little hurt and a
good deal puzzled, asked with evident hesitation, "What--what did you say,
Mr Fortescue?"

"I said that Lady Alicia's stay cannot be too long," he answered, softly.

"But--but what good can I be?"

"The good you cannot help being."

There was another moment's pause, then the voice whispered, "I don't quite
understand you."

"My Alicia understands me not!" Mr Beveridge soliloquised in another
audible aside. Aloud, or rather in a little lower tone, he answered, "I am
friendless, poor, and imprisoned. What is the good in your staying? Ah,
Lady Alicia! But why should I detain you? Go, fair friend! Go and forget
poor Francis Beveridge!"

There came a soft, surprised answer, "Francis Beveridge?"

"Alas! you have guessed my secret. Yes, that is the name of the unhappiest
of mortals."

As he spoke these melancholy words he threw away the stump of his cigar,
took another from his case, and bit off the end.

The voice replied, "I shall remember it--among my friends."

Mr Beveridge struck a match.

"H'sh! Whatever is that?" cried the voice in alarm.

"A heart breaking," he replied, lighting his cigar.

"Don't talk like that," said the voice. "It--it distresses me." There was a
break in the voice.

"And, alas! between distress and consolation there are fifteen
perpendicular feet of stone and mortar and the relics of twelve hundred
bottles of Bass," he replied.

"Perhaps,"--the voice hesitated--"perhaps we may see each other some day."

"Say to-morrow at four o'clock," he suggested, pertinently. "If you could
manage to be passing up the drive at that hour."

There was another pause.

"Perhaps----" the voice began.

At that moment he heard the sharp crack of a branch behind him, and
turning instantly he spied the uncompromising countenance of Moggridge
peering round a tree about twenty paces distant. Lack of presence of mind
and quick decision were not amongst Mr Beveridg