oes the criterion consist? I was acting for the best. You do
not imagine, do you, that I regret it?"

And to her lips came a smile.

"I took Mary, who, you must admit, is respectability personified, and
whom I had long since elevated from nurse to sheep dog--I took Mary,
and, together, all three of us, we went abroad. It is in travelling that
you get to know a man. Each evening, when he said good-night, my
admiration had increased. From England, as you know, we went straight
to India. It was a long trip, I had heard, but to me it seemed
needlessly brief. During the entire journey I studied him as one studies
a new science. I watched him as a cat watches a mouse. Not once did he
do the slightest thing that jarred. During the entire journey he did not
so much as attempt to take my hand in his. He knew, I suppose, as I
knew, that if the time ever came I would give it unasked.

"One evening, on going to my stateroom, I found I had left my
vinaigrette on deck. Mary was asleep. I went back for it alone. It was
very dark. On the way to where I had sat I heard his voice; he was
talking to one of the passengers. In spite of myself I listened to what
he was saying. I listened for nearly an hour. Not one word was there in
it all that he could not have said to me. When I got back to my cabin I
wondered whether it might not be that he knew I was standing there. Yes,
I admit, I was suspicious; but circumstances had made me so. Oh! he has
forgiven me since."

She smiled again complacently to herself, and, tucking the whip under
her arm, she drew off a glove; on one finger was a narrow circle of
gold. She looked at it and raised it to her lips.

"When we landed our journey had practically begun. You see, I was still
unassured. Yet he was irreproachable and ever the same. Well, the
details are unimportant. One day, at Benares, he heard that leopards had
been seen in the neighborhood of a lake some fifteen or twenty miles
out. At once he was for having a crack at them. I determined to
accompany him. He was surprised at first, and objected a little, but I
managed, as I usually do, to have my own way. It was night when we got
there. We left the horses with the guide, and, noiselessly as ghosts, we
stole through a coppice which hid the lake from view. Almost at the
water's edge we crouched and waited. The stars were white as lilies and
splendid as trembling gems. The silence was as absolute as might. How
long we waited I cannot now rec