o know
exactly who were the people concerned and how it had all happened. It
was a delightful tragedy for the Christmas festivities.

"Come on," said the young man again. "They're nearly all out."

"I can't," moaned the girl.

Frank took her by the arm resolutely.

"Come!" he said.

Then she came, and the two passed out together into the mob waiting to
come in.

"We shall have to walk," said Frank. "I'm sorry; but I've got to get
home somehow."

She bowed her head and said nothing.

Gertie presented a very unusual appearance this evening. Certainly she
had laid out the two-pound-ten to advantage. She was in a perfectly
decent dark dress with a red stripe in it; she had a large hat and some
species of boa round her neck; she even carried a cheap umbrella with a
sham silver band and a small hand-bag with one pocket-handkerchief
inside it. And to her own mind, no doubt, she was a perfect picture of
the ideal penitent--very respectable and even prosperous looking, and
yet with a dignified reserve. She was not at all flaunting, she must
have thought; neither was she, externally, anything of a disgrace. It
would be evident presently to her mother that she had returned out of
simple goodness of heart and not at all because her recent escapade had
been a failure. She would still be able to talk of "the Major" with
something of an air, and to make out that he treated her always like a
lady. (When I went to interview her a few months ago I found her very
dignified, very self-conscious, excessively refined and faintly
reminiscent of fallen splendor; and her mother told me privately that
she was beginning to be restless again and talked of going on to the
music-hall stage.)

But there is one thing that I find it very hard to forgive, and that is,
that as the two went together under the flaming white lights towards
Chiswick High Street, she turned to Frank a little nervously and asked
him if he would mind walking just behind her. (Please remember, however,
in extenuation, that Gertie's new pose was that of the Superior Young
Lady.)

"I don't quite like to be seen--" murmured this respectable person.

"Oh, certainly!" said Frank, without an instant's hesitation.

* * * * *

They had met, half an hour before, by appointment, at the entrance to
the underground station at Victoria. Frank's van-journeyings would, he
calculated, bring him there about half-past six, and, strictly against
the